Hooray for bad Intel
by Hawk
Summary: One of the worst things that can befall a ninja, is going on a mission based on faulty Intel. But for Naruto and his temporary team-mate, it might just turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to them! Completed! Rare pairing!
1. One

Hooray for bad Intel [R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: One of the worst things that can befall a ninja, is going on a mission based on faulty Intel. But for Naruto and his temporary team-mate, it might just turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to them! Completed!

Disclaimer: Naruto, Konoha and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine.  
If the layout looks screwy or symbols seems to be missing, you're probably reading the quickedit-mangled version of this fic on ff dot net, if it grates on your nerves too much, read it on hawksgalaxy dot com or something.

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860, MSN Messenger/E-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dotcom, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like. More stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV 

Random thoughts

This was first published back in July 2007 on TFF for prereading and improvement, I've spent the past week going back over it to smooth out a few of the rough edges and make some other minor revisions, before it was finally time to spell-check and publish it 'for real' and not just for prereading.

Credit for giving me the idea for this fic goes out to GenocideHeart, who posted it in one of the Naruto threads over at TFF and caused my mind to barf up this little thing.

It's also one of the few fics I've upped in recent years that's actually complete ( Even if I'm 94kb's into a sequel at the moment, so don't worry. More shit based off this particular fic is coming... Eventually... ). Completed fics from me has grown increasingly rare since my days as a F/X - The series and Hawkverse/X-Men writer, so it's nice to finally upload a completed story again.

Anyways, not much of interest to say this time, so just lets go on with the fic itself...

Roll credits

* * *

Chapter One:

Naruto wasn't a person who spent a lot of time trying to find the guilty party when the shit hit the fan, as it so often had a tendency to do in his life.

Mostly because whenever he'd done that in the past, he'd discovered a disturbing tendency for himself being fully or at least partly at fault.

It was much easier on the mind to just deal with the crap, blame it on whatever or whoever was most convenient at the time and then never try to verify if his assumption about the guilty party was correct or not.

He made an exception now however. Then again, cases of the shit hitting the fan quite this hard and in such great amounts, were rare, even in his chaotic life.

"Go left!" a voice called from behind him and Naruto instantly darted forward and to the left behind a tree, behind the cover of which he continued running like all the hounds of hell was breathing down his neck.

There was actually someone breathing down his neck at the time, or well, over his shoulder at any rate. Bleeding through the back of his t-shirt too, from the feel of things. Realizing this allowed him to dredge up some additional scraps of strength by pure willpower and making him run just a little bit faster then before, wincing as he heard his reluctant passenger give off a pained groan.

"Sorry..." Naruto muttered apologetically, in spite of knowing that he didn't really have a choice, no matter how uncomfortable the current mode of transportation was for his companion.

"Fuck sorry. Just run!" was the terse response, grunted out from between clenched teeth.

"Right!" one of his clones suddenly cried out, right before Naruto heard the tell-tale poof of a clone being destroyed. He jumped to his right and if he hadn't been spending all his energy and focus on running as fast as possibly, would have swallowed nervously as he saw a Windmill shuriken whisk past in a line that likely would have cleaved his passenger in two and seriously wounded him, if he hadn't dodged to the side.

"Got a good grip? I gotta try to create some distance and need to get into my equipment pouch." Naruto asked.

"Do it!" came the snarled response from behind him, as the arms around his neck tightened their already hard grip.

Naruto nodded and moved his right hand, currently supporting the right leg of his passenger, over towards his equipment pouch. He felt the leg slipping down and the weight on his back shifted uncomfortably, but his injured passenger managed to hold on and remain on his back anyway. He extracted a small wad of explosive tags, glancing down at it with a sad frown for a few moments.

"Hey! Grab this! Hold those fuckers off!" Naruto grunted to one of his clones that were running alongside them, then held the tags out for the clone to take.

"Got it!" the clone responded, took the notes and then leaped up at the trunk of a tree, before leaping backwards in the direction they had come from.

Naruto moved his right arm down and fumbled for the leg it had been holding on to previously, without connecting. He tried again for a few moments, but supposed the leg was out of his reach at the moment.

"Your leg. Can you get it up?" he asked and heard a grunt of effort and suppressed pain over his shoulder, then felt something connect with his right hand. He hastily latched on and pulled it forward, wedging the leg between his torso and arm.

A horrible series of explosions sounded from behind, so rapidly that it almost sounded as one single explosion, only somewhat managing to mute the sound of several clones being destroyed as well.

A couple of pained screams that lingered after the explosions revealed that it hadn't been in vain, however. Even if all their pursuers hadn't been stopped, at least some of them sounded fairly dissatisfied with how things had turned out.

Of course, he wasn't feeling all that good about the situation either.

"Anyone left?" he called out.

"Three of us!" one of his clones responded and Naruto would have exhaled in relief, if it wouldn't have wasted time, energy and air that could be used to keep his body supplied with air as he frantically dashed through the forested slope, running up the hillside towards their only shot at making it out of this shit alive.

It wasn't fool-proof, but the presence of clones lessened the need for him to turn his head around to try and keep an eye out for attacks. They could do the looking back, leaving him free to concentrate on speed instead of dividing his time between running and keeping an eye out for attacks from behind.

"The bridge is up ahead!" he exclaimed as he spotted the structure in question, then blanched as he realized that he hadn't saved any of his explosive tags! He'd given them all way to hold off their pursuers! "Fuck! You got any explosive tags on you?!" he yelped to his passenger.

"Pouch... Left hip." came the weakening grunted response.

"Fuck it, hang on!" he shouted, becoming increasingly worried about his passengers health. "One of you, grab her pouch and destroy the fucking bridge once we've crossed it!" he ordered and saw one of his clones move closer to them out of the corner of his eyes. After some mucking about, the clone distanced itself somewhat from them and rummaged through the pouch, until it had located what it was looking for. The pouch was closed and tossed over to another clone for safe-keeping.

Naruto strained himself even further and managed just a little bit more speed then before.

It was no use pacing himself now. If they didn't make it across that bridge, they'd be dead anyway. That bridge was their only shot at survival. They had to make it across it and destroy it behind them, then their pursuers would have to take a six-hour detour to make it over to the other side.

Fucking hell!

There wasn't supposed to be any enemy Nins here, just some bandits!

For once, Naruto had quite happily tried to reason out the guilty party and come to the conclusion that the current situation could be blamed on bad Intel and/or some lying son of a bitch client!

There had been bandits, sure enough. That much was true.

But what also had been true, was that there were missing Nins with the bandits!

His companion had identified two missing Chuunins from Konoha and at least seven from Sand earlier, but the amount of people chasing them now was at least twenty.

What should have been a simple little workout crushing a large band of bandits and some easy B-rank money to tide him over during his training trip with Jiraiya, had turned into a major cluster fuck! Which was why Naruto was now running for all he was worth, carrying an injured companion on his back.

He nearly laughed in relief as his right foot slammed down on the rickety bridge, but instead just kept on running, ignoring the swaying as the simple rope and wood bridge weaved in all directions as he darted across it much faster then he was supposed to, followed by his three clones.

He tried to not look down or listen to the loud creaks from the wooden planks protesting against his harsh treatment of them and instead focused on speed and NOT FALLING DOWN INTO THE FUCKING CHASM BELOW THEM!

He was sweating from exhaustion, but some of the beads of sweat creeping out of him now were due to the fucking drop below them. He hadn't been all that comfortable with heights since that fucking pervert threw him down that gorge, trying to force him to pull on the Kyuubi's Chakra. The desperate situation and the bridge swaying weren't helping either.

He hadn't even made it completely across the bridge, when the first explosion went off.

He let out a small yelp and uncaring of his burden, jumped as high and far as he could.

"Gagh!" came a pained exclamation from behind him as he landed on the other side of the chasm, three soft thuds following soon after revealing that his clones had made it across as well. He spun around and exhaled in relief as he saw a string of explosions tearing the bridge completely apart, while a group of ninja came to a stop on the other side, staring in consternation at the destroyed bridge.

"Take that, you fuckers!" Naruto yelled defiantly.

"Fuckers..." his burden repeated weakly and got Naruto to focus on more important matters then taunting their opponents.

"Hold on. We'll head for that stream we passed on our way here and I'll take a look at your wounds." Naruto promised and set off at a more moderate pace, trying to lessen the jolting to the best of his ability.

Three minutes later, they reached the small mountain brook he recalled from a day earlier and Naruto kneeled down as his three clones helped Inuzuka Hana down off his back.

"Shit, but you can run..." Hana mumbled in a somewhat impressed tone of voice as she was assisted into a lying position next to the small brook.

"Shit, but you're a mess..." Naruto responded as he observed her. A deep cut on her left thigh had left her trousers soaked with blood. A slash across her stomach was probably mostly responsible for the bleeding through his t-shirt that he'd felt earlier. Her right arm was riddled with shuriken injuries and he also spotted a Kunai sticking out of the back of her left shoulder, an injury she hadn't had when she climbed onto his back earlier. "Shit, when did this happen?!" he exclaimed.

"About... Ten minutes ago." she replied, panting heavily.

"Damn it! You should have said something!" Naruto berated her.

"Didn't want... Slow us down... Nothing we could... Have done... About it... Anyway." she replied and Naruto had to admit that she had a point. Even if he'd known about it, he couldn't have done anything but run anyway. He tore his equipment pouch open and rummaged through it.

He usually didn't carry around much in the way of medical supplies, seeing as how he recovered from most injuries so quickly, but he did carry some bandages. The one of his clones that carrier Hana's pouch did the same and had much greater luck with that, finding not only two small emergency medical kit, but also soldier pills and blood replenishing pills.

Naruto gulped down one of the soldier pills. They couldn't stay here long and from the looks of things, Hana would still need him to carry her, so he needed whatever extra energy he could lay his hands on. He forced Hana to take one, as well as a blood replenishing pill, then he and his clones bandaged her up as best as they could after having hastily washed her wounds off with water from the brook.

Not the best or most hygienic of solutions, but they were pressed for time. Fifteen minutes after they stopped, Naruto once again had Hana on his back and was ready to go.

Besides the obvious injuries that he'd spotted due to the blood, she also had a broken right ankle and a fairly nasty bump on the left side of her head.

He had his fair share of injuries as well, but mostly bruises and various cuts of differing length and depth. There was a Kunai wound on his lower back, somewhat to the left of his spine, which hurt like hell. One of his clones had used a nasty smelling salve from one of Hana's medical kits to stop the bleeding, but it had otherwise been left untreated. He'd heal it anyway, so once the flow of blood had been stopped, he'd wrapped things up and prepared to take off again.

"You, hop onto the back of him. Then you'll run in a straight line towards Konoha until you run out of juice." Naruto instructed two of his clones, who did as he instructed. One of them jumped onto the back of another clone, which started running towards Konoha at top speed. Hopefully, the heavier then usual tracks would convince the pursuers that he was heading straight towards Konoha with Hana on his back. "You. Erase the tracks of us splitting up here, then come find us." he told the last one, then walked down into the brook and sloshed off downstream.

He wasn't certain that they'd even bother sending someone here to check out the point they had started at if they found the traces of his clones heading for Konoha, but he wasn't about to take any chances. Not with the injured Hana to worry about. So, he ignored the fact that his feet and legs were quickly soaked by the cold mountain water in favour of becoming harder to track.

If he recalled the map he'd glanced at before the mission started correctly, this little brook winded it's way southwards towards the border of the Wind Country.

It was sort of an obvious direction to take. Going north would take them closer to the border to Earth Country, which was a massively bad idea even if there was peace at the moment. But with resentment from the last war still going strong, he didn't want to take any stupid chances of getting Rock Nins on their tails as well. A blonde-haired Konoha Shinobi with an injured companion wasn't likely to be a popular sight, considering the damage that the fourth had done during the last war.

A straight line back to Konoha would take the two clones through the Country of Rain. Considering that half the team was badly injured and the mission was shot to hell, it was sort of logical to take the closest route back home, which is why Naruto wasn't taking it.

Going south towards Wind was a serious detour, but he'd rather take a risk of being chanced upon some overly enthusiastic Sand border patrol, then a Rock one. Besides, if it threw off the pursuit, it was well worth it.

He really needed a bit of time to check on Hana and do a better job at treating her wounds, but didn't dare to take the time for that now. First, he needed to create some distance between the two of them and those asshole fuckers who were chasing them, then he could seek out shelter and do a better job at treating the injuries of his partner for this mission.

He'd begged and pleaded with granny Tsunade to give him a cool mission after that mess with the ruddy bug-search he'd gone onto with Kiba, Shino and Hinata and she'd finally relented. He suspected that she'd done it more to take his mind off going to search for Sasuke and to stop his nagging then anything else, but he'd take whatever he could at that point.

After she'd made it clear that he wouldn't be allowed to go off gallivanting after Sasuke, he needed something to take his mind off that and a cool mission would do just that. Tsunade had, apparently in a way that would ensure a few weeks of peace and quiet for herself, sent him off on a B-ranked mission to Bird Country to deal with a band of bandits. Besides, the super pervert had said something about an extended training journey and a high-rank mission to pad his pockets somewhat in preparation for that wouldn't go amiss. Or so he'd thought, at least.

Since he couldn't go off on his own and there were few others to spare, Tsunade had assigned Hana to go with him.

Her animal clinic had been heavily damaged during the Sound/Sand invasion and was currently being rebuilt almost from scratch, so she was taking missions full-time these days to scrape together enough cash for the repairs.

She was a Chuunin and only one person, not really enough for the job Tsunade had given them, but the two Inuzuka ninja dogs she'd brought with her were supposed to make up the difference. She had other animal companions, but they were apparently recovering at the Inuzuka compound for injuries received during the Sound/Sand invasion or out on missions with other members of her family.

Unfortunately, one of the two she had brought had taken a Windmill Shuriken to the chest while protecting Hana from it and the last one had gotten lost in the confusion as Naruto summoned a shitload of clones to cover their retreat. The dog had tagged along with his clones in an effort to protect its mistress retreat and that was the last Naruto had seen of it.

Now it was just the two of them, on the run in a foreign country, with a gang of Shinobi who might or might not be hot on their tails.

He wasn't sure that the Missing Nins would actually bother chasing them down, but he wasn't about to take any chances.

* * *

"Left... Over and behind that hill. It looks like a cave." Hana suddenly spoke up and Naruto swivelled his head around, looking over the craggy landscape until he spotted what his passenger had.

"It does, doesn't it?" he mumbled his agreement. He hesitated for a while, but they had made it a fairly long distance from the destroyed bridge and it had started growing dark. He was tired as hell, injured although not as seriously as Hana, wet, cold and he'd almost slipped a couple of times while trudging down the stream. "Think we should stay?" he asked.

"We've crossed a fair distance and we don't know if we'll find any shelters further downstream." Hana pointed out, but didn't actually answer his question.

He could understand it, in a way. She was more or less entirely dependent on him for the moment. If the roles had been reversed, he wouldn't have wanted to decide things for her either.

It still felt extremely odd, however. She was both older, more experienced and higher ranked, so leaving the decision-making up to him didn't exactly rub him the right way.

He had declared his desire for becoming Hokage for years and he'd gladly take command whenever he was allowed to do so. But previously, there had always been someone else around that told him when he was being a fool. Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, Tsunade, Shikamaru, Shino, Jiraiya... There had always been someone around to point out when he was about to muck things up.

Hopefully, Hana would do the same.

"We'd better stop." he declared out loud and Hana grunted her agreement. "Hide our tracks, would you?" he told the last of his clones and trudged out of the brook, heading for the cave. He brought out two more clones once they were a fair bit away from the mountain stream and sent them ahead to the cave, to make sure that it was useable. One of them returned not that much later, letting him know that it was okay and would serve adequately as shelter for the night, while the second clone scouted the surrounding area.

He nodded and sent the reporting clone off to scout as well.

"Gotta learn that technique someday." Hana commented. "It does seem pretty handy." she added.

The soldier and blood replenishing pills had done her a whole world of good, leaving her somewhat coherent during the time they'd spent going downstream. She was starting to sound rather exhausted however and Naruto felt that he'd made the right decision in stopping for the night.

He put Hana down inside the cave and changed her bandages, also applying some foul-smelling salves from her medical supplies on her instructions. She also directed him to apply a sweet-smelling poultice to the bump on her head. When the third clone returned, she tried to instruct it to treat Naruto's injuries as well, but he declined and instead sent the clone back the way they had come, to see if they were still being followed.

"You're hurt as well, you know!" Hana irritably snapped.

"Yes, but I will heal without treatment. No use wasting stuff we might need for you on me." Naruto argued and Hana looked about to protest, before she merely sighed and gave up.

"I'm too tired to argue with you now. This discussion will be resumed tomorrow, however." she declared and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the rocky wall. "What do we have in the way of supplies?" she asked.

"Not much, without our backpacks." Naruto sighed. "I've got some money, a few strings, a few empty scrolls, some kunai and a bunch of smoke bombs. Some matches in a waterproof case. A knife." he declared after checking his rather thin equipment pouch. He pulled open Hana's and checked that through as well. "Two emergency medical kits, one of them nearly empty. Matches in a waterproof case. Three soldier pills and two blood replenishing pills. A wad of bandages. Doggy treats. A scroll with blue edges, a scroll with red edges and a scroll with black edges, in a waterproof casing. Your wallet." he reported after he'd seen what she carried around. "Five Kunai and your sword." he added after a glance at Hana and the equipment she carried on her, not in her pouch.

"The red-edged scroll is veterinarian equipment for work in the field. The blue one is medicine, disinfectants, hot water and the like. The black one goes 'boom' in a serious way." Hana revealed after a few moments.

"Explosive tag?" Naruto asked with a curious look at the black-edged scroll.

"At least ten times as powerful. That lovely little thing can bring down a large building, if there's a need for it. There's a standard five minute delay though, so it's useless in battle. But it's great for sabotage or distractions." Hana replied.

"So... No spare clothes, no food, no blankets, no tent, no water." Naruto sighed, looking down at his dirty t-shirt and torn trousers. His jacket had been torn apart by a nasty hooked axe earlier and he'd thrown off the sleeves way earlier.

"No dogs..." Hana sadly added. "Poor Fireheart." she sobbed and a few tears trickled out from between her closed eye-lids. "Did you see what happened to Brightwind?" she asked after a few seconds of silence.

"He ignored your call to follow us and went back to hold those bastards off." Naruto replied. "I didn't see what happened to him after that."

"Her." Hana countered. "Brightwind is a she." she mumbled with a tired yawn.

"Okay. I didn't see what happened to her after that." Naruto amended and looked around, letting out a faint sigh as he failed to locate anything they could use other then rocks. His legs felt like ice, but starting a fire was likely a bad idea. No clothes to change into, no blankets to sleep in and nothing to eat.

This was going to be one seriously nasty night.

"I'll take first watch. You try to get some sleep." Naruto told Hana, who merely grunted in response. Five minutes later, she started snoring softly.

Naruto watched her for a few moments, then shook his head and stood up, walking stiffly out of the cave and silently observing his surroundings. He rubbed his thighs and moved his legs more then necessary, desperately trying to work up a bit of heat and rid himself of the sensation of being chilled to the bones.

Two of the clones returned after a while, reporting that the area seemed quiet enough. Naruto sent one of them out to fetch Dragon Spruce branches. It was a bit coarse to lie on and the needles had a tendency to find their way underneath your clothes with pin-point accuracy, but it was softer and warmer then lying directly on the stone of the cave. Clone number two, was sent out to hunt. The spruce needles were edible, if only just barely. Rich in vitamins and full of moisture, they could be eaten raw in a pinch or boiled in water to create a nasty-smelling and even worse-tasting hot brew. But he'd rather that it didn't come to that, as the taste left quite a bit to desire, no matter how one consumed them.

After having to repeat the survival classes at the academy twice due to his failures to pass the final exam, he had no desire to ever eat or drink those blasted things ever again.

After almost two hours, during the time which Naruto and the clone he'd sent out to collect spruce branches had fashioned makeshift bedding and moved Hana over to that, the third clone returned.

It looked to be on it's last legs, huffing and wheezing as it jogged towards the cave. More disturbing then that however, was the fact that it was nearly transparent!

"What the hell happened to you?!" Naruto demanded to know.

"Dunno... The further away I got, the more tired I got. I started to fade about an hour or so ago and decided to head on back. Doesn't seem to get any better, though." it replied, causing Naruto to scratch the back of his head in confusion.

It was at times like these, when he really regretted not reading more about this cool technique when he had the scroll in his hands. He'd mainly just read the descriptions on how to perform the technique and skimmed through the rest, before he was interrupted.

But it appeared that these things either didn't last very long or couldn't move too far away from him without loosing their juice.

Or possibly a combination of the two.

He'd never really used them for any extended periods of time before, just summoned them, used them up and then gotten rid of them.

Come to think of it, he hadn't sent any of them very far away from him either.

"Well, whatever. Did you see anything?" Naruto asked.

"Not before I had to go back." it reported and Naruto nodded. He reached out towards it and did something unusual. Ordinarily, he just had them burst into smoke when he was finished with them. He had heaps of Chakra anyway, so he didn't really need to reabsorb his clones when they were of no further use to him.

Now, he felt as if he could use every single little scrap of energy he could lay his hands on, just to stay awake.

So, he reached out and reabsorbed the clone, feeling how a faint trickle of Chakra was restored. Not as much as he used up to create the clone, not by a long shot, but a little bit of Chakra more was better then nothing at all.

What surprised him however, was that Chakra wasn't the only thing he got. A torrent of memories washed over him, letting him know everything the Shadow Clone had experienced since he created it up until the moment he reabsorbed it.

"Hey, that's kinda cool..." he mumbled, deciding that he really had to experiment a bit with this technique once the two of them were in the clear and back in Konoha. It was pretty obvious that he hadn't quite mastered the use of this technique just yet and that there was a lot for him to learn about it, things that were potentially extremely useful.

He hung around the cave opening for a couple of hours, keeping an eye out for any danger, while his two remaining clones hunted and fished. He'd told Hana that he'd take first watch, but he didn't intend for her to take any watch at all. She needed the rest far more then he did. His smaller wounds had already mended themselves, the rest would soon enough and it was likely only the kunai wound on his back that would be still giving him problems in the morning. The frantic itching sensation from it revealed that it was rapidly healing, though it likely take a while longer before it was completely mended. Sometime mid-afternoon tomorrow, Naruto guessed.

After seeing how badly the clone he'd sent back to look for signs of pursuit had managed, he'd grown increasingly worried. If the same thing happened to the two clones he'd sent off towards Konoha, they'd likely expired a long time ago and thus wouldn't provide much of a distraction if the enemy had decided to follow them.

An hour or so before sunrise, his worst fears were confirmed as the clone he'd sent out to hunt returned, revealing that a search party of eight was heading downstream. The one he'd sent out to fish returned shortly after that, revealing that it had spotted them as well.

"Fuck..." Naruto grunted and headed inside the cave, ordering his clones to ensure that their tracks were well hidden. They had started to look worn as well at this point, though not as much as the other one. Obviously, distance from the Summoner played a part in how long they lasted. He walked back and forth inside the cave, fretting and worrying, kicking stones and casting the occasional glance at Hana.

He really should wake her up, but he didn't have the heart to do so until it became absolutely necessary.

He stopped his pacing as a background noise alerted him to the fact that something was seriously off. He looked in the direction the last stone he'd kicked had flown and slowly walked over in that direction, coming to a stop at what had seemed to be the end of the cave.

However, the hole in the ground revealed that the first impression had been incorrect. He crouched down, picked up a stone and dropped it into the hole, hearing a faint splash after a few seconds of waiting.

"They're following the river downstream and doesn't appear to have noticed anything off." one of the clones reported, entering the cave.

"Good." Naruto replied, emitting a relieved sigh, before he glanced consideringly at the clone. "Hey. There's more to this cave. I hear water down there. Head on down and see what's down there." he told the clone, who nodded before crawling down the hole and was missing for several minutes, before it returned, climbing up instead of simply walking up.

"I ran out of juice. I can't stick to walls any longer." it reported and shook it's head, panting somewhat. "Anyway, there's a huge cavern and an underwater river down there. Seems like it goes on forever." it reported and Naruto nodded, then reabsorbed the clone, nodding to himself as it's memories confirmed what it had reported, although in much greater detail.

"They've noticed that the tracks stopped! They're heading back this way!" the last clone reported, bursting into the cave.

"Fuck!" Naruto grunted and headed back towards the cave opening, carefully peeking out and now he saw the search party with his own eyes. It was eight of them, one of them was one of the Konoha Chuunins that Hana had identified earlier. He also recognized the Rock Nin with the hooked axe. That had been one nasty bastard. He didn't know what the other six were capable of, but he wasn't feeling all that confident in their chances of surviving an encounter with this group. "Keep an eye on them. I'll wake Hana." Naruto ordered and slunk back into the cave, leaving the clone to keep an eye out.

This one was starting to look worn as well, though it hadn't gotten to the transparent phase yet. But it likely wouldn't last much longer.

"Hana. Wake up." Naruto urged her after kneeling down next to her, putting a hand over her mouth to prevent any accidental outcries.

Her eyes shot open in a split second, swiftly focusing on him.

"We've got company." he warned her and slowly removed his hand from her. She nodded and winced in pain as she experimentally moved various parts of her body.

"Fuck!" she angrily hissed. "I won't be able to use my right foot. My left leg is stiff and my shoulder hurts like hell!" he reported in an angry murmur. "How many of them are there?"

"Eight. One of them is one of the Konoha Chuunins and the other is a really nasty Rock Nin, probably Chuunin as well. I don't know about the other six." Naruto replied.

"Fuck." she repeated and hissed as she pulled herself up into a sitting position, her eyes widening as she spotted the spruce branches she was sleeping on. She had hardly even stirred earlier as Naruto and one of the clones moved her over to sleep on that, so she was quite obviously surprised to not find herself sleeping up against the cave wall. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm mostly healed, yeah. A bit tired, but otherwise okay." he replied, downplaying the kunai wound on his back and the various injuries that hadn't quite healed yet.

"Eight of those bastards and only one of us who's of any use... Fuck. We're smoked!" she muttered, then looked up at him with a deadly serious expression on her face. "Listen, Uzumaki. You've gotta get the hell out of here. Leave me here." she instructed him, fumbling around for her pouch from which she extracted the three scrolls, readying the black-edged one.

"Forget it. I don't much fancy the idea of running, but I'll carry you on my back and run like the wind all the way back to Konoha if I have to." Naruto protested.

"I'll just be slowing you down! Together, we 'aint got a chance of making it. Alone, you might!" she argued as loudly as she dared.

"If you weren't injured, I'd beat the crap out of you for even suggesting that I'd leave a comrade behind." Naruto coldly informed her. "If I was to just leave you here, I'd be lower then trash!" he snarled. "Forget it. We're getting out of here together or not at all."

"Stubborn asshole! Just leave me and get the hell out of here!" she whispered fiercely.

"They're coming this way. I think the Konoha guy discovered our tracks." the clone reported.

"Fuck! Of course! He'd know all about standard Konoha techniques for concealing our tracks!" Naruto exclaimed.

"See? Just, get the hell out of here! I'll make sure that I take down at least two of them before I go down!" Hana snarled.

"You couldn't defeat a newborn kitten at the moment." Naruto snorted. "Besides, I said that I won't just leave you here and I don't go back on my word! That's my Ninja Way!" he declared.

"You'll never outrun eight of them with me on your back." Hana argued and Naruto had to concede that she had a point. He was exhausted from earlier and from not sleeping, so he wouldn't be able to run as fast as he had earlier. He looked over at the seeming end of the cave and his eyes narrowed.

"There's an opening to a huge cavern over there." Naruto said with a nod. "I don't much fancy heading that way without knowing if there's a way out or not, but it might be the only way for us to get away from these fuckers."

"That swirling thingie you used earlier, can that cut through rock?" Hana asked after a few moments.

"I haven't really tried, but I think so, yeah." Naruto responded after a few moments.

"Then we can make our own way out if it's necessary. If you're not going to leave me here, then I'm all for it. If I leave this thing here, it might stop those other assholes from trying to follow us." Hana replied and held up the black-edged scroll.

"Five minutes, eh?" Naruto asked, looking at the scroll.

"Yeah. Think you can buy us that much time?" Hana asked and Naruto shrugged.

"It's worth a shot. Fire that thing up." he declared and headed for the cave opening. The search party had less then a minute left until they'd reach the cave. He took a deep breath and summoned almost hundred clones, which was nearly everything he had the juice for at the moment. He sent half of them towards the immensely startled search party and had the other half split up. Half of those that remained transformed into the spitting image of Hana, then jumped onto the backs of the remaining Naruto Clones, then they all took off at a dead run.

If the assault team didn't manage to hold those bastards off for five minutes, hopefully they'd waste some time after that chasing down the copycat clones that were splitting up and running off in various directions.

Four clones and the fading one from earlier remained with the two of them.

"Keep those bastards away from here until Hana's scroll blows up." Naruto instructed the rear guard, then headed for Hana who was shoving the scroll underneath the spruce branches she had been resting on, hiding it from view. "Ready?" he asked and Hana grunted in response, then was helped to get up onto his back.

Naruto walked over to the opening to the cavern and looked down, letting out a faint sigh.

"Into the darkness, fearlessly we go..." Hana mumbled softly, quoting a passage from an old poem. It was completely lost on Naruto, who'd never read that particular poem.

"I guess..." he mumbled, then started directing Chakra to his feet before carefully climbing down into the hole.

The End! ( For now... )


	2. Two

Hooray for bad Intel [R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: One of the worst things that can befall a ninja, is going on a mission based on faulty Intel. But for Naruto and his temporary team-mate, it might just turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to them! Completed!

Disclaimer: Naruto, Konoha and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine.  
If the layout looks screwy or symbols seems to be missing, you're probably reading the quickedit-mangled version of this fic on ff dot net, if it grates on your nerves too much, read it on hawksgalaxy dot com or something.

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860, MSN Messenger/E-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dotcom, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like. More stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV 

* * *

Chapter Two:

"There's an island of sorts a ways ahead and a little to the right." Hana announced from her place on Naruto's back, causing him to squint as he tried to make it out.

He'd always had a pretty good night vision compared to others, but as he'd quickly found out in the darkness of the caverns, Hana had him beat by miles in that department.

"I think I can make something out..." he muttered hesitantly and trudged off in that direction, discovering as they got closer that she'd been right.

While the caverns had seemed immense when he'd sent down his clone, it seemed that the only real route they could take, forced him to wade through an icy cold underwater river. The huge cavern they'd wound up in at first had turned out to be just a huge hollowed-out chamber of sorts. They'd made a complete lap around the edges of it, only to discover that the only way out seemed to be following the river downstream. Upstream was a small waterfall that emerged seemingly straight out of the cliffside, making taking that route seem impossible at worst and simply highly inconvenient at best.

But while circling the chamber, at least they had gotten proof that the way back was completely blocked. They'd both heard the scroll go off, followed by an immense amount of noise as rocks crashed against each other, but hadn't really realized the scope of what the scroll had done until they returned to where they had started out at.

It seemed almost as if an entire mountain had collapsed down into the cavern, completely blocking that way out. But as it also completely blocked any angry enemies from following them, neither of the two Konoha Shinobi grieved overly much about that.

But as Naruto emerged out of the water and headed up onto the rocky island, he wondered if he might not have preferred trying to fight the search party instead of running underground to get away from them. He couldn't call his legs numb, as they were constantly aching like hell, both from the icy coldness and his body's attempts to regenerate the damage. But if he hadn't had the Kyuubi sealed inside of him constantly repairing any damage inflicted, they likely would be completely numb and useless at this point.

He had to use a piece of string around the back of his neck, the ends of which he tired around Hana's feet, to keep her from dipping them into the water. She had no way to recover from frostbite, so he was immensely grateful that the water hadn't been any deeper.

But in spite of the fact that Hana hadn't gotten soaked, her teeth were chattering from the cold damp air in the cave. He leaned down and put one of his hands against the rocky island, frowned and walked around it, repeating the process over and over again until he finally let out a tired sigh.

"It's wet all over." he reported with a groan.

"Get down into the water again. I'll deal with it." Hana suggested and Naruto glared angrily at the water for a while, before he did as she said and walked back down into it. "A little further away from the island." she said and he moved off a ways. "There, that's perfect. Turn a little to the left." she instructed and Naruto slowly turned around. "There, stop." she said and took a deep breath of air. "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!" she bellowed out and spat out several gusts of furiously burning balls of fire that splashed down onto the island.

Waves of heat crashed against them and for a few moments, Naruto wished that he could just walk right up onto the burning island to warm his chilled body. But he waited somewhat patiently until the fires had died down, then Hana spat out another barrage of flaming death upon the island. They had to wait a while longer and then she suggested that they get out of the water.

Naruto headed back up onto the island and reached down, feeling the surface with his hands again.

"It's dry." he announced and Hana exhaled with relief.

"Thank the Kami. I'm stiffer then Kiba reading a copy of Kunoichi Gone Wild!" Hana exclaimed, causing Naruto to chuckle briefly at the mental imagery that particular statement brought forth.

He gently let her down off his back, untied the strings and slumped down onto the ground, leaning back until he was lying down on top of the still somewhat warm boulder, a posture that Hana soon enough emulated. The two of them rested like that for almost ten minutes, before Hana broke the silence.

"Thanks." she suddenly grunted.

"For what?" Naruto asked.

"Not abandoning me back there." she replied after a few moments.

"Those who abandon their comrades are worse then trash..." he mumbled and shook his head. "I'd never do that. It's not my ninja way."

Kakashi hadn't taught him much new stuff, other then the tree walking. The few times the three of them had trained under Kakashi's supervision, their perverted teacher had spent most of his time refining their old skills from the academy or trying to instil some form of teamwork in them.

But the one on abandoning his comrades was one lesson that had really stuck with him and that Naruto had taken to heart, fully and completely.

"Damn, but I'm hungry." Hana announced after a while. Naruto was inclined to agree with her. Unfortunately, they'd had to abandon the fishes and a rabbit that his clones had captured while at the entrance to these caverns. All there was in the way of food now, were Hana's doggy treats and the remaining soldier pills.

"There's been some splashing, so I guess there's fish around." Naruto said after a few moments and slowly raised himself to a sitting position. It wouldn't be easy, with no tools and little light to see in.

"Don't bother. It's more important for us to get dry and get warmer before we freeze to death. Food can wait." she argued and Naruto slowly nodded. "Get over here and help me get up." she told him and Naruto slowly did as she requested. When she was upright with Naruto supporting her, she blew out a long stream of fire against one particular part of the island. "Help me get my shoes and pants off, would you?" she requested and Naruto did so, although with a faint blush as the lack of pants revealed the fact that Hana wore bright red panties and apparently hadn't shaved her legs in a while.

"OOohhhh, that's nice." Hana sighed as Naruto helped her sit down on part of the area she'd just heated up. "Put the pants over there. You'd better leave yours out to dry as well." she instructed with a nod at a small boulder that had been part of the area she'd just heated up. Naruto put her pants there, but hesitated at removing his own. "Get over yourself, kid. You don't have anything I haven't seen before." Hana snorted and Naruto sighed, then stripped out of his shoes and pants as well, putting his pants down next to Hana's. "Great, now get over here." she instructed and had Naruto sit down right in front of her.

She had him very gently pull her legs up against his body and poked her feet into his arm pits, then instructed him to do the same, until both of them warmed their feet in each others armpits.

"Ugh, you need a shave. These are some seriously hairy legs." Hana commented after a while.

"I don't think your legs have seen a razor in a while either." Naruto snorted in retaliation.

"Bah, I've been busy getting the clinic rebuilt and doing missions to scrape together enough money to pay for it. There's been no point in shaving my legs." Hana muttered with a faint blush. "Your feet smells like sewer sludge." she added, scrounging up her nose as she got a whiff of him.

"It 'aint exactly roses and cinnamon over here either." Naruto countered.

"Those whiskers of yours doesn't exactly make you the prettiest guy in Konoha." Hana commented.

"Those facial markings aren't exactly what I find attractive in a woman either." Naruto snapped right back at her.

"Well... At least we've established that the two of us should never breed. That'd be some hairy smelly ugly-ass kids." Hana grunted after a few moments of angry silence, then laughed. "Sorry. I'm just hungry and frustrated at being nothing but a dead weight around here."

"You're not a dead weight. It's dry and the ground is warm now. I couldn't have done that." Naruto admitted after a few moments.

"You don't know any Katon jutsu?" Hana inquired with a surprised tone of voice.

"Nope." Naruto grudgingly admitted.

"Huh... Well, I'll teach you one or two when we get back home. You've certainly earned it, lugging me around these caves and carrying me away from those bastards when everything went to hell." Hana offered, causing Naruto to perk up.

"Really?" he asked, his voice a mixture between giddiness at the prospect of learning something cool and disbelief at her offer.

"Sure thing." Hana agreed.

"For real?!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah." she replied.

"Really, for real?!" he added.

"Yes, I've already told you! But not if you keep this fucking shit up!" she snapped, then grunted. "Sorry..." she apologized, awkwardly patting his right knee.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too." Naruto responded, before the two of them fell into an extended period of silence, broken only by Hana's request for Naruto to turn the trousers over and a bit later, a request to get her trousers and shoes back so they could try to get some sleep.

* * *

"Breakfast of champions, eh?" Naruto muttered as he stared down at half a fist of doggy treats.

"I've had to eat them before. It's not too bad, if a bit dry. Got lots of minerals, vitamins and shit, rich in protein as well." Hana responded, already chewing down on some treats. Naruto stared incredulously at her for a few moments, then popped one of them into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully on it before he swallowed.

It was dry, like she'd said. It also reeked like five-day old underwear, but the taste wasn't too bad. He'd had worse over the years. He ate the rest of them and walked down to the shore, cupping his hands and drinking some water, before he helped Hana down so she could do the same. Helping her to take a leak was embarrassing as hell, but he figured that he'd better get used to it.

Until they were back in civilization, they only had each other to rely on.

Once they had finished, Naruto once again helped Hana get onto his back and tied her feet up so they wouldn't dip into the water, then he set off again with her riding piggyback.

It was a dreary couple of days the two of them spent following the underground river. The luck they'd had during their first day underground hadn't quite held up. The water level had increased at several points, causing Hana to get wet and at three points, forcing the two of them to swim for a while as Naruto couldn't reach the bottom.

They'd also had to spend one night cooped up on a small ledge Naruto had drilled out with a Rasengan, as they hadn't found any suitable place to stop at. The two of them had been wet and miserable, huddling up against one another for warmth. They'd had to swim for quite a bit, so even Hana's fire and the warm ledge hadn't provided much comfort. Especially as they once again had to get down into the water once they'd slept.

But after what the two of them assumed had been nearly a full week underground, the river they'd been followed finally led them out into the open again. The two of them blinked owlishly as they tried to get used to their much brighter surroundings. Once he could see again, Naruto trudged over towards the shore and helped Hana sit down on a small grassy knoll. He collapsed beside her and laid down, looking dazedly up at the blue sky.

It wasn't all that hot, in fact, the mountain air was downright chilly, even without the faint breeze that was blowing. But the sun shining overhead felt like a small miracle after all those days in nearly complete darkness and he hardly even noticed the cold in face of that. The two of them rested for half an hour, just laying there in the sunlight, until Hana requested that Naruto help her stand up.

He did so and the two of them carefully examined their surroundings, trying to make sense out of them and discovering where they were.

"I think we've headed northwest." Hana offered, as the two of them looked out over the surrounding landscape from a rugged cliffside. "Look over there, I think that's Yama-san, the highest mountain in the Country of Rock." she suggested and pointed almost straight north at a tall peak in the distance. "And that river over there, I think that is the river that marks the border between the Bird and Rain countries." she added, pointing towards the east.

Naruto shrugged. He'd never bothered much with geography and had no idea of knowing if she was correct or not. He knew that there was a Mount Yama in Rock that was supposedly very tall, but he couldn't tell if she was right or not. The map had gotten completely soaked in the caverns, so that was useless and he'd left it behind four days ago.

At least he thought it was four days ago, telling time underground had been guesswork at best.

But they had crossed a river when they went between Rain and Bird, but he didn't know if it was that particular river that Hana had pointed out.

"We're pretty close to Rock, but they shouldn't have patrols this far into Bird anyway, so we should be safe from them. And those fuckers after us should have no way of knowing where we'd wind up, if we'd wind up somewhere at all, so we've likely lost them. Both Bird and Rain are allies to Konoha, so running across one of their border patrols would be a good thing." Hana mused out loud. "I say we head for the river, see if we can come across one of their patrols or some village on the way there." she suggested and Naruto nodded.

"Sounds like a plan to me." he agreed.

Unfortunately, few plans survive first contact with the enemy.

* * *

The enemy, in this case, was the mountains of Bird and the harsh mountain weather. As they headed for lower ground, travelling in the direction of the border to the Rain Country, the weather got progressively worse. Dark clouds appeared, the temperature dropped and it didn't take more then two or three hours after they'd appeared above ground, before snow started to fall.

Naruto thought that it was bad enough for him, but Hana was even worse off. She'd requested that he'd try to keep her awake, so he'd been babbling nearly non-stop for the last hour or so, occasionally asking her a question or otherwise forcing her to respond. Before they started out, the two of them had split the last soldier pill, assuming that it would be easier to gather food now that they were out of the caverns.

But as the snowfall grew progressively worse, Naruto started wondering if it might not be even harder then in the caverns. Visibility was dropping and if he was feeling as cold as he was, then Hana must be halfway dead.

He was at the point when he was considering just stopping and trying to build some kind of shelter, when he spotted what looked like buildings not that far off. He instantly switched directions and headed for them, only to groan as he came closer and saw that it was an old deserted village up along a cliff, likely some form of mining community.

The reason for it being abandoned wasn't all that hard to guess. Nearly half of the village seemed to be missing and quite a few of the buildings that remained seemed half-destroyed by boulders and rubble.

"Avalanche..." Naruto muttered, but kept on heading for the village anyway. At this point, there was little else to choose from. It took him a few attempts, but he eventually located a house that seemed mostly all right. Unfortunately, the door was locked, but a hefty Chakra-enhanced kick solved that little problem.

He kicked the door shut and wedged a kunai between door and doorway to keep it shut, then looked around. The house had apparently been emptied. As it was one of those that seemed to have made it through the avalanche more or less unscathed, the family who used to live here had probably taken all their things with them when the village was abandoned.

He gently put the shivering Hana down against a wall, then got back outside and started looking into the destroyed buildings, where he soon located some badly needed supplies. He created a bunch of clones and tried sending them out, but the harsh winds that had started plaguing the area were so powerful that most of them were destroyed by the winds. He created more and sent them out, instructing them to find whatever useful things they could and bring them back to the house where Hana was, before he rushed off towards it himself.

He'd recovered a bear-skin rug, some dirty towels and some torn curtains. It would have to do for the moment. His own teeth were chattering as he made it back to the house and he didn't even dare to think of how bad it must be for Hana.

The caverns had been bad enough, leaving both of them somewhat cold the entire time. But the weather outside was much harsher, much more dangerous. This freak snowstorm really couldn't have come at a more inopportune time!

He laid the bear-skin out and after a bit of hesitation, carefully stripped Hana out of her wet clothes, leaving her in her red panties. He would have left her in panties and bra, had she worn a bra. He was sure that later recollection of this moment would leave him blushing furiously, but at the moment, he was too worried about his team-mate to be embarrassed. He put her down on the rug, then covered her with the towels as they had made his rush through the storm more or less okay. Three of the curtains hadn't, but he put the two of them that had made it dry over Hana first, then added the three wet ones over them.

She needed every little bit of heat she could get at the moment.

So did he, to tell the truth. But the little he'd done seemed woefully inadequate, so he rushed out again in an attempt to track down more necessities.

* * *

"Ugh... Mom? M'cold..." Hana shivered as she woke up, feeling completely drained. She didn't even have the energy to open her eyes. She shifted around and yelped, as her broken right foot made itself reminded. "Fuck!" she screamed and her eyes shot open in spite of her exhaustion. She looked wild-eyed around herself as recollection of her circumstances slowly returned.

Though she must have lost something somewhere, she reasoned as she looked around.

The last thing she could recall was being carried through a snowstorm on the back of her Genin team-mate. Now, she was lying on something warm and soft, covered with what looked like a haphazard collection of towels, blankets, curtains and the pelt of a snow lion. She had a pillow of sorts, fashioned out of what appeared to be a pile of old clothes that she didn't recognize.

She gingerly moved her hand around and discovered that she was dressed only in her panties and bandages. She looked around and spotted a small fire going in a fireplace behind her, where she also spotted her trousers, sweater and Chuunin vest drying over two chairs standing close to the fireplace.

No Uzumaki in sight, however.

"Uzumaki?" she called, but didn't get a response. "Uzumaki!" she shouted, but once again failed to get a response. "He gets five minutes, then I'm hobbling off to look for him." she decided out loud and settled down again, burrowing down underneath the covers.

Fortunately enough, as she was feeling weaker then a new-born pup at the moment, he appeared before the five minutes were up. He was carrying what appeared to be a table without legs and a small pile of books.

"There you are! Where have you been and where are we?" Hana asked.

"O-o-oh, y-y-y-you're awa-a-awake." he commented, his teeth chattering. "De-d-des-deserted m-m-mi-m-mi-mining v-v-v-village." he replied and dropped the books, then set out to break the table, before tossing pieces of it onto the small fire.

"Fuck, you're freezing to death!" Hana exclaimed, observing his shivering body, her eyes widening as she saw his white-bluish fingers that seemed extremely stiff. "Stop that shit, get out of your clothes and get under here!" she snapped.

"N-n-n-n-n-no w-way!" he chattered. "I'll g-go out a-and f-f-f-find s-some m-m-more b-bl-b-blankets f-for m-m-m-me."

"Uzumaki!" Hana snapped authoritively. "If you haven't stripped out of your clothes and joined me underneath these covers before the count of thirty, I'm getting out and stripping you down yourself!"

"Y-y-y-you w-wo-w-wouldn't!" Naruto managed to get out, looking over at her with wide-open eyes and a shocked expression.

"Try me!" she snarled. "Twenty-three." she added and observed how he hesitated for a while. "Seventeen." she counted and Naruto slowly removed an old worn jacket he hadn't been wearing the last time she was awake. "Twelve." she continued.

"G-ge-g-geesh! T-take i-it easy! I'm c-c-co-c-coming!" Naruto exclaimed and laid the jacket out in front of the fireplace, then stripped out of his t-shirt and pants, leaving them in front of the fire as well. He looked over apprehensively in her direction, seeming as if he'd rather bolt outside then join her under the covers.

"Four!" she snarled and that appeared to settle things, as he slowly approached her. She raised the covers and jerked her head, indicating where she wanted him to be.

His eyes widened even further and now he really did seem about to bolt. She followed his gaze to her naked chest, then glared back up at him.

"Uzumaki. It's getting cold and I'd much rather be warm. Now get over here!" she yelled and he gingerly lowered himself, then crawled in underneath the covers with her. "There! Damn it, was that so bloody hard you moronic stubborn jackass?!" she yelled in his face as she lowered the covers onto him, then spun him around and yanked him up against her. "FUCK! You're like an icicle! Moron! Idiot!" she berated him, creeping up against his back, trying to maximise the amount of skin that touched skin. Judging from how extremely cold he was, it was a bloody miracle that he hadn't dropped dead yet.

"Y-y-y-yo-you n-n-ne-n-needed m-mo-more supplies." he chattered.

"Uzumaki, you foolish, foolish moron..." she grunted, rubbing her hands over his chest. "If you drop dead like the sack of shit you appear to have for brains, then how the fuck will I survive?! I can't even bloody walk on my own!" she ranted, took a deep breath and then decided that the stupid fucker needed one final push. "If you'd died, you'd have abandoned me here to die."

"T-t-t-trash..." Naruto mumbled.

"Yes, those who abandon their team-mates are shitfaced punks who deserve to be drawn and quartered!" Hana snapped. "So get this through your thick little head, I need you alive and well." she told him and sighed, calming down a bit. "So no more stupid stunts like these, okay?"

"O-o-o-okay..." he muttered.

"Good!" Hana approved. "Now fucking get some rest." she ordered him. No more then two minutes later, he started to snore and Hana relaxed somewhat.

No less then five minutes after that, she joined him in blissful slumber.

* * *

"Go fish." Naruto said and Hana groaned.

"Argh! I hate this game!" she snapped and threw her cards down, shaking her head in dismay. She looked over at the window and grunted at the sight it offered them of the outside world.

Snow.

Lots and fucking lots of snow!

"Is there any rabbit left?" she asked, looking back at Naruto.

"Yeah. Want me to go get it?" he asked and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes! Please." she said, almost salivating at the thought of food.

They'd been stranded in the deserted village for the past four days and while the storm from earlier had abated, the snowing showed little signs of letting up. Naruto and his clones had went through the village, scouring it for whatever they could use and while they couldn't very well go anywhere, at least they now lived in relative comfort.

He'd scrounged up a real bed, which was now situated in front of the fireplace. He'd found another one in decent shape, but Hana had declared that it was more useful as firewood then a bed. There wasn't space for two beds in front of the fireplace and as the house was a devil to heat up, in spite of some emergency repairs, it was better to stick with the sharing a bed approach.

He'd found and repaired a table, the one she was now seated at, and found a bunch of mismatched chairs. He'd also recovered some old spices, some plates, bowls and she'd made a set of chopsticks for them to use. He'd lucked out during one of his scavenging hunts and come across a family of rabbits taking shelter in one of the abandoned buildings. Yesterday, he'd also brought home a deer that had ventured a bit too close to the village, so they weren't lacking food, which was incredibly nice.

It felt as if it had been ages since there had been enough to eat and Hana had quite happily stuffed herself so full that she'd been in danger of throwing up after the first real meal here.

It took a bit of effort, but they'd melted and heated enough snow so that they had been able to take a bath each, which had also been incredibly nice.

Some old clothes had also been recovered and Hana was now wearing a pale blue winter kimono Naruto had brought back on their second day here. It was a little too big for her, but it was comfortable and in a better shape by far then what she'd worn when they arrived. Naruto was now decked out in a simple pair of brown working pants several sizes too big, a dark grey t-shirt and when he headed outside, he used a dirty old grey jacket and a pair of cotton mittens he'd found. He'd found a jacket, thick trousers and a pair of sturdy boots for her, but she hadn't ventured outside since their arrival here.

She'd fashioned a crutch for herself to easier move around and so that she could go to the bathroom on her own and her foot was now wrapped up in a supportive brace. She'd used a few of the techniques she used on animals on herself, but while it helped with the pain, it didn't really do anything for the broken bones.

Apparently, the Chakra systems of humans and animals were too different and she didn't know any medical jutsu that dealt with broken bones. She knew a few emergency battlefield healing techniques, but those were for dealing with cuts, bruises and wounds, not broken bones. So she'd done her best and then simply left it to mend on it's own.

The deck of cards he'd recovered earlier today had been a bit of a lucky stroke, as she had been slowly going insane from the boredom of being cooped up inside for four days. Unfortunately, it seemed that the only game he knew was 'Go fish', which bored the hell out of her, even if it was somewhat better then just sitting around.

She resolved to teach him more games, if they were going to be stuck in this bloody place for any longer, however!

"Here you go." Naruto announced as he put down a plate with what remained of a grilled rabbit and a glass of water in front of her.

"Thank you." Hana thanked him with a small smile.

While she did miss her home, she had to admit that it wasn't all too bad here. The kid was surprisingly decent company and had proved himself more then capable.

She had been a bit hesitant at first, when she found out that she was going to go on a foreign mission with the almost legendary 'demon prankster'. But after she'd spoken with Kiba, who'd been in his class at the academy and her mother, who'd come across him a few times when he'd visited Kiba in the hospital after that whole mess with the second Uchiha traitor, she'd calmed down somewhat.

Kiba had first ranted for nearly half an hour about what a jackass Naruto was and the injustice of loosing his fight during the Chuunin exam against him due to a fart of all things. But once he'd gotten that off his heart, he'd calmed down and told her some funny stories about some of the stuff they had pulled at the academy. At the end, he'd wrapped it up with 'Well, I guess Naruto is a decent guy. Annoying as hell at times, but a good guy'.

Tsume had apparently spoken a couple of times with him when they had crossed paths at the hospital during Kiba's recovery. She'd merely grunted out that she was positively impressed at how good the kid had turned out, in spite of everything.

She had yet to find out just what that 'everything' was, but had decided that she didn't really care. It was how people were at the present that was important, not what they had been like.

Not everybody appeared to reason like that however. When they walked together from the final meeting with Tsunade-sama towards the gate, she'd seen the glares, smelled the hatred and heard the angry whispers directed at her companion from large parts of the population.

It seemed harsh, extremely so!

Sure, she'd heard the stories about his outrageous pranks for years and she'd even seen the results of a few herself, even if she hadn't ever been personally targeted by him.

But the sheer amount of raw hatred directed at the poor misguided kid seemed extremely disproportional. Especially considering that he seemed to have eased off on the pranks since he turned Genin. The only thing she could recall off hand was a tale about a stampede of sorts, just before the Chuunin exams and the Sound/Sand invasion. The worst part of it all was that he hardly seemed to take note of it. It was as if he'd gotten so used to it that it was merely part of the background at this point.

He'd been very loud and somewhat obnoxious at first, she had definitively had her fill of claims about becoming Hokage and obviously wildly exaggerated stories about fights with Bingo Book criminals, Sand Demons and even the legendary missing Nin Orochimaru!

She'd indulged the kid by listening and offering the occasional comment and by the time they entered the Country of Rain, he'd calmed down somewhat. When they entered the Country of Bird, they'd achieved a friendly camaraderie of sorts.

But it wasn't until they were unexpectedly ambushed by those Nins that shouldn't have been there, that she'd started to really appreciate him and wonder if there might not have been a few shreds of truth in those tall tales of his.

When those enemy Nins seemed to crawl out of the woodwork all around them, she had thought it was all over, but with a humongous puff of smoke, there was suddenly Shadow Clones all over the place! She had damn well nearly fallen flat on her ass in surprise, but Fireheart and Brightwind had gotten her moving again. His clones had been woefully inadequate as fighters against the battle-hardened missing Nins, but the sheer number of them had allowed the two of them to make their escape.

"Hey, Uzumaki! How old are you?" Hana suddenly asked, not even she herself having been aware that she was about to ask that until her mouth had opened and the inquiry emerged from between her lips.

"My thirteenth birthday was three months ago." he replied. "Why?" he asked.

"Oh, just wondering." she awkwardly replied and reached for the rabbit, tearing a chuck of flesh off the husk and shoving it into her mouth with relish.

Thirteen.

And more mature at thirteen then several guys her own age that she hung around with. Granted, there were others that were more mature, but the fact that he was only thirteen and still this capable, was somewhat impressive.

"Neh, Hana-neechan. How old are you?" Naruto countered and tore off a chunk of flesh for himself.

"I turned eighteen last summer." she replied after she'd swallowed, then yanked off another strip of rabbit.

"Eighteen? And you're still a Chuunin?" he asked.

"I haven't done enough missions to be considered for a promotion." she explained. "Most of my time is spent around the clinic, though I'm occasionally called in for a tracking or scouting mission." she continued, then shrugged. "Then again, I don't have any real desire to become a Jounin either. Chuunin pay is good enough for me and since my real passion is caring for animals at the clinic, well... I figure, why bother? I'd probably decline the opportunity to take the Jounin Exam even if it was offered to me."

"Huh?" Naruto mumbled, obviously having problems understanding the concept of actually turning down a promotion.

"Jounin rank means a higher chance of getting long-term missions and if the worst comes to pass, you can get landed with a team of Genins to train. Sure, the pay is heaps better, but if it means perhaps being forced to be away from the clinic for half a year to complete some mission or perhaps having to shut it down for a couple of years to train a bunch of brats, then it's simply not worth it." Hana added and Naruto pondered that for a while, then slowly nodded. He didn't really understand how she could reason like that, but at least there was some sort of explanation for it, even if he didn't get it.

"Well, I'm going to become a Jounin as soon as possible and then I'll become the Hokage!" Naruto boasted.

"You know, I've heard you say that a whole bunch of times now, but I don't think I've ever heard you explain just why you want to become the Hokage." Hana mused and snatched another piece of rabbit. "Why do you want to become the Hokage?" she asked.

"So that I can protect all my precious people!" Naruto instantly exclaimed. "The Hokage is the strongest ninja of them all, so if I become then Hokage, then I can protect everybody." he added.

"That's a good reason." Hana admitted. /It is a bit childish, but at least his heart is in the right place./ she added in the privacy of her own mind.

She gulped down some of the water he'd brought out in addition to the rabbit, then tilted her head as she considered him for a few moments.

He was a good provider, he was fiercely protective, kind and helpful in the extreme, considering his age, he was also extremely strong and capable.

Good traits, one and all, she decided.

She tore loose another strip of rabbit and slowly chewed on it with a thoughtful expression.

In fact...

She blinked in surprise as she realized that he was just about precisely what she was looking for in a mate.

She smiled to herself and shook her head, clearing her mind. Even if he'd probably be a good mate, he was a bit too young for her. Her forehead creased a bit.

/At least right now... In a couple of years, a five year age difference wouldn't matter all that much./ she suddenly realized and silently observed him again. She drank another bit of water, then absently licked her fingers clean as she observed him.

She'd keep that fact firmly in mind, if both of them were still single a few years down the road.

The End! ( For now... )


	3. Three

Hooray for bad Intel [R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: One of the worst things that can befall a ninja, is going on a mission based on faulty Intel. But for Naruto and his temporary team-mate, it might just turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to them! Completed!

Disclaimer: Naruto, Konoha and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine.  
If the layout looks screwy or symbols seems to be missing, you're probably reading the quickedit-mangled version of this fic on ff dot net, if it grates on your nerves too much, read it on hawksgalaxy dot com or something.

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860, MSN Messenger/E-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dotcom, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like. More stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV 

* * *

Chapter Three:

"Honey, I'm home!" Naruto jokingly called as he walked into the house.

"Welcome home, sugar." Hana wryly responded from her seat at the table, where she was currently heavily involved in a very 'exciting' game of Solitaire. She looked up from the uncooperative set of cards and made an approving noise as she saw the mountain goat Naruto had slung over his left shoulder. "Ah, the great hunter returns with fresh prey." she cooed and rubbed her hands together.

"Not only with that. I've got a surprise for you." he announced with a shit-eating grin so wide that it seemed as if the top half of his head was about to fall off.

"For me? Oh, you shouldn't!" she responded with mock bashfulness, then looked curiously at him as he just stood there, grinning at her. "Well? What the hell is it?" she asked impatiently. "And close the door, the temperature is dropping faster then a Grass Nin struck in the head with a Windmill Shuriken!" she added.

"I found someone!" Naruto announced and gestured at someone she couldn't see. Seconds later, Brightwind limped inside and instantly hobbled over towards a flabbergasted Hana.

"Brightwind!" she squealed and went down onto her knees, ignoring a sudden stab of pain as she did so. She flung her arms out and suddenly had a face-full of wet tongue. She sobbed and giggled at the same time, wrapped her arms around the huge dog and felt so good that she was afraid that her heart might actually burst from pure joy. "Brightwind! You're alive!" she exclaimed and buried her face into the furred neck of her faithful companion, sniffing and drawing in the scent of her greatly beloved, if somewhat wet and incredibly fragrant, dog deep into her nose.

Naruto smiled happily at the sight of Hana being reunited with one of her beloved dogs as he closed the door behind him.

Though she rarely said anything about it, she had quite obviously been worried sick about the dog once their own situation had stabilized somewhat and it was a very tearful reunion that Naruto became a somewhat envious witness to.

The love between mistress and companion was almost painfully obvious. While he shared in Hanas joy at the reunion, he also felt an almost irrational amount of hate and incredible envy, that she had someone that she was that close to. Sure, he had his precious people, but the sort of close bond that Hana appeared to have with Brightwind, wasn't something that he was anywhere remotely familiar with.

He'd come across the dog just outside the village when he was heading back with his catch. He hadn't been quite certain that it had been one of Hana's dogs, at first believing that it was a wolf. But the dog had barked in a familiar way and unhesitantly approached him. He did find it somewhat familiar and figured that it was indeed the missing Brightwind. The dog had sniffed at him a couple of times and visibly perked up, becoming excited and impatient, which had further increased his belief that it really was his companions missing dog.

It was quite amazing, not only that the dog had survived the encounter with those missing Nins, even if it apparently hadn't gotten away from the confrontation without injury. But then the loyal animal had even managed to track down it's mistress!

Though he guessed that he shouldn't be so surprised by that last part. He'd seen how Shizune used Ton-Ton to track down Tsunade on occasion and once when Tsunade had sent him out to find Shizune, he'd used the surprisingly clever pig to track down the elusive Shizune who'd been out shopping at the time. But it was impressive none the less, after all, the animal couldn't have followed them through the cave. Somehow she had tracked them down from above ground, crossing the mountains to get to this abandoned village.

He thought back upon the direction the dog had to have come from and shuddered. Those peaks looked nasty and to have made it here in the two weeks that had passed since last they saw Brightwind, was somewhat impressive. Especially considering the limp the dog had walked with!

"I take it that my surprise meets with your approval?" Naruto asked as he headed for the kitchen with the goat.

"It certainly does!" Hana exclaimed between happy sobs, tears streaming down her face as she looked up at Naruto for a few moments, before she redirected her full attention to Brightwind. "Mommy's little darling is back with mommy again..." she cooed and ran her hands all over her beloved companion, her expression suddenly growing more serious and her hands becoming more consciously guided. "Oh, baby! You're hurt!" she gasped in horror. "Uzumaki! The scrolls! I need my scrolls! Bring me my scrolls!" she yelped in a panicked tone of voice.

"Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses." he responded, dropped off the goat and washed his hands, before he walked back to the living room, where Hana was already hopping over in the direction of their ninja gear, resting on top of a cupboard he'd recovered a while ago. "Hana-neechan, stay!" Naruto said and surprisingly succeeded in stopping her dead in her tracks, then walked over, picked her up and carried her over to the table where he seated her on one of the chairs. "Sit." he told her and then brought her equipment pouch over. "You know that you shouldn't be moving around like that, especially not without your crutch."

"I don't care! Gimme that!" she snapped and yanked the pouch out of his hands, whipping out the two remaining scrolls. She opened her mouth, revealing her faintly pointed teeth and pressed her left thumb down on top of a particularly sharp specimen, then ran it across the both her scrolls. In a puff of smoke, piles of equipment, a basin of warm water and a huge amount of small bottles and containers appeared all around her.

Naruto simply looked at the slew of medical equipment for a few moments, then shook his head and headed back towards the kitchen.

"I'll leave you to it. Just don't overdo it and let me know if you need any help." he cautioned her.

"Yes, mother." Hana responded, rolling her eyes at his mother-hen-like behaviour. "Come here, Brightwind." she ordered and directed a determined gaze at her dog. Brightwind whimpered and cautiously slunk over towards her crazed-looking mistress, tail between her legs and well aware of Hana's own intense mothering whenever one of her beloved companions was injured.

Brightwind was happy to be reunited with her mistress, but she'd much rather be without mistress in nursing mode!

* * *

It was three days after Brightwinds arrival, that the event that changed everything occurred.

Brightwind had been allowed outside on her own to do her business, while Hana and Naruto were seated at the table, Hana explaining the rules and tactics of poker to her ignorant young companion when they heard a panicked yelp from outside. Their gazes swivelled around to the window, where the both of them paled at what they saw.

"A bear!" Hana yelped. "Brightwind!" she yelled and made as if to get up.

"Sit! Stay!" Naruto snapped and darted off towards the door. He yanked out the kunai that wedged the door shut and darted outside at a dead run. Hana blinked in surprise a few times, surprised to find that she was still seated at the table, then shook her head to clear her mind and hobbled off towards the window. She blanched as she saw Brightwind slowly backing away from the bear in question, her hackles raised and her fangs bared in a feral growl.

The bear was still approaching her beloved dog however and Hana was about to open the window, when Naruto came darting around the house and into her field of vision. The bear ignored the screaming human and made as if to attack Brightwind, causing Hana to let out a horrified yell.

She let out another one as she saw Naruto push Brightwind out of harms way, only to get hit himself, throwing him aside in a fountain of blood. He vanished into a pile of snow, only to jump out a second later with a feral expression and an angry yell, snow flying in all directions.

The bear hesitated for a moment, probably pondering which target to go for, when it suddenly found itself swamped by Shadow Clones. A very loud and messy minute later, the bear was down. It's fur was matted with blood, bleeding from a multitude of Kunai wounds and its head completely removed by a Rasengan.

Hana had been surprised when she found out that the 'swirling Chakra thing' had been the Fourth Hokage's legendary technique, but she was even more surprised now when she saw first-hand what it was capable of. She had seen Naruto pull it up during the ambush, but she'd never seen the result as she'd been kept busy by opponents of her own. There was that ledge he'd carved out of bare rock using it, but this was the first time she'd seen what it could do to a living target.

It was... Impressive.

Granted, it was a technique with some serious drawbacks. The most serious being that it was only useful at point-blank range, but holy shit, that thing packed some serious power!

Then her mind focused on more important matters, like the fountain of blood she had seen when Naruto was struck.

He seemed less concerned about that however, instead turning to see if Brightwind was all right, before he headed back towards the house, followed by the limping dog.

"Naruto!" she exclaimed when he walked inside followed by a concerned-looking Brightwind, then closed the door behind him. The t-shirt was completely torn apart and he had parallel wounds going down from his left shoulder to the upper right part of his stomach, all of which were bleeding profusely.

"I'm all right." he downplayed it, though he looked pale and somewhat unsteady.

"Like hell you are!" she protested and hopped over towards him. "Fucking hell..." she cursed as she got a better look at his wounds. "Let's get this shirt off you." she grunted and tugged at it, causing him to hiss in pain. "See? I told you so." she snapped irritably and wobbled unsteadily as she helped him strip out of it. "Sit!" she ordered him and pointed at one of the chairs he'd dragged over and put into the kitchen, before hopping off towards her equipment pouch and the medical kits to be found therein.

"This is nothing. It'll heal." he downplayed his injury.

"Perhaps." she admitted after a moment. The brat healed like nobody's business! The injuries he'd sustained during the ambush had been completely healed two days later, not even a scar remaining. "But that's no reason not to have it looked at." she added as she hopped over towards him and seated herself on one of the other chairs, bringing out her emergency medical supplies.

She washed out the wounds as best she could, carefully inspecting them for foreign particles. She did find and pull out a torn piece of what likely was one of the bear's claws, but other then that, they were remarkably clean. She applied some disinfectant and spread out a thin layer of a salve that helped to stem the flow of blood. It was supposed to be used in greater amounts then what she used now, but there simply wasn't any more of it to be had, so she really hoped that his amazing healing didn't fail him now.

There weren't enough bandages either, so she reluctantly sacrificed one of his t-shirts and used that to supplement them. She also managed to force him to down the last of their painkillers with a bit of water, which seemed to relax him somewhat.

"All right, my ass..." Hana groused and shook her head. "Now off to bed with you. Don't even think about getting out of that for the rest of the day, unless you have to drain the lizard or take a dump!" she ordered and Naruto reluctantly did as she requested, stripping out of his trousers and grumbling all the while, slipping under the covers. "And Naruto?"

"Yeah?" he groused.

"Thank you." she said softly and watched over him as he rapidly succumbed to sleep.

While he could go for extended amounts of time without sleep, the method his body preferred for dealing with injuries in as rapid a manner as possible was to shut down all unnecessary tasks in order to devote all energy to dealing with repairing any and all defects. Thus it was that it only took him a measly minute to fall asleep, while his body was being restored to peak condition.

Hana remained seated in her chair, absently patting and stroking Brightwind as she observed her sleeping companion. After nearly half an hour of doing so, lost in her own thoughts, she got up and hobbled over to the bed, looking down at him.

She pricked her left thumb on one of her small fangs, then gently drew an intricate little pattern on the sleeping young mans forehead. Once she was done, she looked down at Brightwind who nodded, then raised her own left paw and repeated Hana's earlier actions, piercing herself and holding the paw up towards Hana. She smiled and patted Brightwind on the head, then lowered her right hand and used her index finger to collect a small amount of her dog's blood, which she used to make a few additions to the mark she'd drawn with her own blood.

"On all ranges, free and untamed. From the lowest of valleys, to the highest of mountains. In hunger and in prosperity. From newborn cub to the end of times. In life and in death, in hunt and in rest. Part of the pack, forever more." she chanted in a soft voice, then leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, sending out a brief burst of carefully molded Chakra through her lips as she did so.

The traditional Inuzuka chant, used right after the birth of every new cub, both human and canine. At some very rare occasions, it had been used to induct outside members into the family, but only for the most special of occasions and for the most extraordinary of people. Hana's own father hadn't received it, but this young man was definitively worthy of it.

She simply looked at him with a small smile for a while longer, then she stripped out of her kimono and slipped under the sheets with him, curling up at his side and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Forever more, part of the pack..." she mumbled and stretched her arm out across him. Moments later, Brightwind hopped onto the bed and curled up at their feet, resting her snout on Naruto's right leg.

He'd put his life at stake to save Brightwind, a member of Hana's pack.

Five years apart or not, he was a suitable mate and Hana had made her mind up.

He might not know about it yet, but he was hers now!

Just as she was his.

Part of the pack.

Forever more.

* * *

"Oh. Hey." Naruto mumbled as he woke up and found Hana next to him. They had shared a bed ever since they came to the village and while they usually slept a bit apart from each other, they had woken up right next to each other often enough that he no longer freaked out about it, which was why his reaction on waking up and finding Hana's head resting on his shoulder wasn't cause for undue alarm.

There was one unusual thing about it, however. Her eyes were opened and she didn't appear to have just woken up either, but she was still resting her head on him. He wasn't holding on to her, so she could have moved away at any time. In fact... She was the one who held on to him! He blinked a couple of times, but refrained from commenting on it.

"Hey." she softly greeted him. "Feeling better, Naruto?" she asked him and moved her hand over, gently caressing his chest, cautiously running her fingers across the bandaged part of his chest. She'd peeked inside them not too long ago and had witnessed the jagged scars that was all the evidence that remained of the bear's claws tearing him open not all that long ago.

"Yeah." he agreed, only now recalling the bear from earlier. "How long was I out?" he asked.

"Five or six hours or so, I think." she absently replied in a muted tone of voice.

"Uh... You're not moving." Naruto finally observed out loud, starting to grow somewhat nervous at their close proximity.

"No, Naruto. I'm not." she agreed, still caressing his bandaged chest.

"You're not calling me 'Uzumaki'." he further observed.

"No, I'm not." she pleasantly agreed with a small smile.

"Is there a reason for it?" he asked after a few moments of shocked silence.

"You don't have a girlfriend, right?" she asked him and he blinked in surprise.

"Uh... No." he replied somewhat suspiciously and in great confusion at the unexpected inquiry. "Why?"

"Would you like one?" she asked and leaned over, placing a soft kiss on his jaw.

"Hana-neechan... You're scaring me." he commented in a somewhat strained tone of voice.

"I know that I'm a few years older then you, but hey, I like you and I'm not too bad of a catch, am I?" she asked him in a soft tone of voice, a humongous change to her usual loud and brash demeanour.

"Hana-neechan... Do you have a fever again?" he asked and moved his left hand over, putting it on her forehead. She had a fever during the fourth day underground and she hadn't been very coherent for most of the time, but thankfully enough, she'd mostly recovered from it after a nights rest.

"You don't want me? Is that it?" she asked with a disappointed sigh, looking away from him.

"You're very pretty, Hana-neechan." he declared after a few moments. "You're fun to be with and you're a really cool Shinobi." he added.

"But I'm too old for you? Is that it?" she inquired.

"No, that's not it. It's just that... You're..." Naruto tried to explain, but trailed off and simply looked down at the unruly mop of hair in his field of vision, extremely unsure over what to do about this unexpected turn of events. "Do you mean it?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

She turned around and looked up at him, lifting herself up so that she could look down at him.

"I've never been more serious about anything in my entire life, Naruto. If you want me, I'm yours." she declared with a grave expression on her face.

"But... Why?" he asked in shocked astonishment.

"You're everything I've ever looked for in a potential mate. You're strong, caring, protective of the pack members, a good provider and you're rather cute to boot." she replied with a small smile. "I was thinking about it before, but figured that I should wait a couple of years until the age difference doesn't matter so much anymore. But after you saved Brightwind... After that, you'll forever be an adult in my eyes, Naruto. There's no point in waiting for some possibility a few years down the road, you're plenty old enough for me as you are." she added.

Naruto once again blinked in surprise and utter astonishment at what he was hearing.

He figured that saving her dog might have prompted something, but he had no idea whatsoever that she'd even considered him in that way before.

She... She actually cared about him!

He felt moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes.

"You're one of my precious people, Hana-neechan. I'll protect you with my life!" he suddenly declared.

"As I will protect you with mine, packmate of my heart." Hana responded and leaned down, giving him a loving kiss.

Naruto froze for a few moments, completely paralyzed by this freaky turn of events.

"If... If you'll have me, I'm yours." Hana said after she'd pulled away and broken off the kiss, maintaining eye contact with the younger man only through her immense willpower. The fact that he'd yet to respond in the positive to her offer made her somewhat nervous.

Okay, scared witless, if she was brutally honest with herself!

"Hana-chan..." Naruto mumbled, looking up at her with a bewildered expression. "Yes..." he finally managed to get out, almost close to tears at this weird-ass turn of events.

"I'm glad." Hana responded, then leaned down in order to kiss him again.

"Woof!" Brightwind barked approvingly from the foot of the bed.

"Shoo! Go sleep in the kitchen or something, furball. We're bonding here!" Hana grunted, breaking off the kiss to give out those instructions, before she lowered her lips to Naruto's again.

Brightwind ignored her mistress however, remaining on the bed and observing the proceedings with a bemused expression.

* * *

It took almost a week for things to progress beyond mere kissing, comforting hugging and a bit of mostly innocent caressing of harmless areas.

Mostly because Naruto hardly knew what to do or what was okay to do and because Hana was hesitant to press any sort of intimate issues due to the fact that Naruto was so much younger then she was.

But as they headed off to bed on the sixth day after the bear incident and started what had become a frequent evening ritual of intense kissing, Hana grabbed his left hand and placed it on her left breast. He froze for a moment and would have yanked his hand away, but with her keeping it in place, he cautiously started to explore this new exciting territory, much to Hana's vocal approval.

Naruto had conducted a fair amount of research into the visible aspects of the female anatomy in order to perfect his Sexy no Jutsu, but there had been no hands-on-approach involved before now. But with Hana offering the occasional hint or request, as well as being guided by the noises she made whenever she particularly approved of something he did, he rapidly learned what made her tick.

As he thoroughly explored her breast, Hana allowed her own hands to do a bit of exploration as well, which in turn encouraged Naruto to widen the area of his own explorations. But other then kissing and some fumbled fondling, that was all that took place that evening.

It did provide a turning point in their relationship however, raising the bar of intensity and intimacy for their makeout sessions. Two days after that, they had progressed to petting and handjobs. The day after, oral sex came into play, much to Naruto's enjoyment. Hana hadn't gotten that much out of it at that point, but Naruto proved to learn those ropes just as quickly as he did everything else and the morning after his first attempt at eating her out, she achieved her first orgasm due to the ministrations of his mouth and tongue.

Before a week had passed, it became a morning ritual for whomever that woke up first to awaken their partner with oral sex, only to have the act returned by a happily awakened lover.

The weather had eased up at this point, snow only falling every other day or so and in rather small amounts, but there was still a thick layer of it covering their surroundings, so they remained in the abandoned village while waiting for better conditions. Hana now managed mostly without the crutch, but still couldn't walk very far or fast on her own.

Brightwind was also healing, though at a much quicker pace then Hana did. Her veterinarian jutsu worked much better on animals then humans.

The two of them were sitting in bed, looking at the burning flames in the fireplace, three weeks after they had deepened their previously only friendly relationship when Hana suddenly raised the intimacy bar once again.

"Do you want to make love tonight, packmate of my heart?" she asked, not moving her gaze away from the fireplace.

If nothing else, Naruto certainly had an unerringly ability to make her feel incredibly nervous about these little jumps and leaps in intimacy, making her feel like an inexperienced Genin girl all over again.

"If that's what you want, Hana-chan." Naruto replied after a few moments, no less nervous himself.

"One thing though, Naruto. If the term 'doggy style' ever comes up during one of our interludes, I'll tan your hide so badly that future generations will feel it. I'll happily do it from behind if you want, but use the term 'doggy style' and you'll regret it." Hana informed him.

"Uh... Okay?" he responded in utter confusion, having no idea what she was talking about at all. He had a general idea of the basics, member A goes into slot B and all that, but he'd never heard the term doggy style before now and had no clue what sort of act it referred to.

"You want to turn in for the night?" she asked him and he nodded, finding himself at a loss for words at the prospect of what was ahead of them tonight. "Put some more wood on the fire and get undressed, then we can... Get started." she drawled and Naruto swallowed nervously, then slowly separated himself from her and headed for the fireplace in a vacant daze as Hana started shedding her clothes.

She came to a stop in mid-process however, silently staring down at the foot of the bed for a few seconds.

"Oh no, you don't!" she informed her dog, who had raised her head off her paws and now stared curiously at Hana. "Brightwind, kitchen!" she snapped. Brightwind rolled her eyes, then got up and jumped off the bed, padding over towards the kitchen.

There was no arguing with that tone of voice!

Hell, even Naruto had almost shuffled off towards the kitchen before he caught himself.

"And stay there until I tell you to!" Hana snapped as Brightwind settled down on the kitchen floor. "No, not you, Naruto. You get over here." she groaned at Naruto, who had frozen in place at her barked command.

He nodded and almost teleported out of his clothes, rapidly rejoining her on top of the make-shift covers.

"Relax. We'll start out with stuff you're already familiar with." Hana reassured her nervous young partner. "Or... Are you sure about this, Naruto?" she asked him, wondering if he was having second thoughts.

"O-of course!" he blustered, then looked hesitant and glanced over at her. "Are y-you?" he inquired.

"Very sure." she replied with a kind smile, then reached out and pulled him into a loving hug, which rapidly turned into one of their usual heavy snogging sessions.

Hana was the one who cranked the heat up, by slowly sliding down her lover's body, kissing, licking and nipping the areas she passed as she went, caressing, groping and fondling all the while. She tilted her head to the right and every so lightly raked her sharp teeth over his silky shaft, something she'd discovered drove him absolutely crazed with lust. He was nearly bouncing off the bed with eagerness as she reached the tip of him and gently took him into her mouth.

She worked him over with teasing little miniscule tilts of her head, just sucking and licking at the very tip of his member, waiting for him to take some initiative. Unlike those of her friends that Hana had spoken to about this very act, she actually preferred a more passive approach. When Naruto moved his hands down and grasped her head, she even let out a little approving moan and started humming around him as he moved her head back and forth, up and down, with jerky needy movements.

She didn't mind a bit of variety and she could in fact be an extremely enthusiastic participant, as Naruto had experienced a time or two since they crossed the intimacy threshold. But this was her favoured way to go about this act, simply allow the man to guide her and then do her best to suck, lick, caress and generally give her lover the experience of a life-time with her ministrations.

She looked up at Naruto and smirked around his member, revelling in the view of him being completely lost to his passions. The knowledge that she could reduce him to a trembling pile of nerve endings desperately seeking pleasure, made her feel all good and tingly inside. In spite of her seeming submission to his will and whims, she felt deliciously in control and dominant at the moment. She raked him over with her teeth again, as cautiously as she could during the current circumstances. Naruto who had by now had some time to grow accustomed to her idiosyncrasies, unconsciously moved her head in as straight a line as possible, to lessen the chances of seriously injuring himself while fucking her mouth.

Hana grinned around him again. He learned quickly, something only one of her previous boyfriends had ever managed to do.

Then again, he and Naruto had been the only ones to ever have been invited to share a bed with her more then once or twice before she either grew bored of the guy in question or the guy in question found her too exciting to be with.

She hummed as Naruto yanked her down completely, her nose burrowing into his pubic hairs for a few moments, before he pulled her back up again.

She knew that she wasn't what most people expected out of a girlfriend and especially not from a potential wife. She was rash, she was brash and she could be more stubborn then a whole flock of pigs. She could outcurse most men her age and some that were twice her age, quite cheerfully interjecting curse words into her everyday speech. She wasn't afraid to vocalize whatever currently was on her mind, no matter the time or occasion. She had things her bloody way or no fucking way at all. To top it all off, she had a tendency to occasionally treat those around her much like she treated her dogs at times. Her 'terms of endearment' where more along the lines of joking insults.

This was the first time in quite a while that she actually felt somewhat worried, wondering if Naruto would be able to put up with her. The first and last time she'd felt concerned over her own natural behaviour, had been when she was twelve and her very first boyfriend had broken up with her. She'd been crying for nearly two full hours after he'd left, swearing to herself that she'd change, that she'd become a proper girl.

Her mother had, thank the Kami, dispelled that silly idea.

After the older woman had grown tired of hearing sobbing in the background, she'd stalked upstairs and barged into Hana's room, demanding to know just what the fuck was wrong with her.

After Hana had shared her little story and revealed that she was going to be a proper girl from now on, Tsume had simply laughed. A brief little sit-down and a short discussion about the importance of being true to yourself and fuck everybody who couldn't accept that later, Hana had promised herself that she'd always be herself and would grind everybody who couldn't accept that to mince and turn them into doggy treats for her beloved companions.

But now, she once again felt herself fretting over her natural behaviour and somewhat unusual mannerisms.

Perhaps she'd better tone it down a bit, if only until Naruto got used to her?

/Naw, screw that!/ she decided and growled around his erect member, the vibrations at the back of her mouth being what set him off during this particular interlude. She closed her eyes and pushed herself down fully upon him, swallowing down whatever she could and keeping the rest in her mouth until she could gulp that down as well.

This was her least favoured part of this particular activity. But she could smell that crap for days afterwards, even after repeated cleanings of both herself, her partner and the bed coverings, if she didn't swallow it down. So in spite of the fact that she rather believed that it tasted somewhere along the lines of raw sewage, she always made sure to swallow every single drop of it.

She'd learned that particular lesson early on and Tsume had revealed that she was the same way, being extremely reluctant to let any of that crap get anywhere close to the bed. Of course, her mother solved that issue simply by doing most of her boinking outdoors, but that was something that Hana had never managed to grow accustomed to or feel comfortable with.

In fact, she felt self-conscious enough about her own dogs watching. The prospect of doing it outdoors, where anyone could see her... That made her shudder in revulsion.

She glanced aside and groaned as she saw Brightwind lying on the kitchen floor, resting her head on her paws, but with her eyes wide open as she observed the proceedings. Hana blushed and averted her gaze. /Fucking furball!/ she mentally snarled, then let out a surprised grunt as Naruto pulled her up and threw her down onto her back, then shimmied down to return the favour.

Hana smirked. /Oh yeah!/ she mentally approved, vocalizing it out loud with a feral growl of approval. /This is the shit!/

There were advantages to long-term relationships, she absently reflected. Long-term to her, meaning anything that lasted past a couple of days. One of them being, that her partner had the opportunity of learning just what worked for her and what didn't, something that Naruto had picked up on pretty darn quickly.

Of course, being that she enjoyed treating her partners much the same way she liked to be treated by them, she grabbed onto his head and none-too-gently used her firm grip on his noggin to direct him so that things were to her liking. He had yet to hold her hands down and control the action himself, like she had done to him a couple of times during her blowjobs, but she figured that might come in time and with a bit more experience on his part. Just because she preferred a more passive approach to sucking him off, didn't mean that she didn't like to mix things up a bit from time to time.

But for now, she didn't mind that very much, as his ministrations while guided by her rapidly brought her to the brink of climax and sent her over the edge with a screamed bellow of pleasure and a cascade of fluid. That was one of the things she most detested about herself, she was a squirter and while she found the scent of her own fluids to be by far more agreeable then that of sperm, it still lingered for days afterwards and caused her to grow horny at the snap of a finger while the scent lingered.

Naruto didn't seem to mind that aspect of their relationship and she had no real complaints either, so she'd graciously decided to ignore something she usually found extremely annoying. Besides, he was a dutiful little lover and always did his very best to clean up afterwards, which he was currently engaged in. The cleanup afterwards was actually nearly as enjoyable as the act that necessitated it and his tender ministrations almost never failed to get her ready for seconds, as was the case right now.

She slipped her hands underneath his arms and yanked him up and towards her, hoisting him into the air, turning over and slammed him down onto his back.

"Time for the main course, loverboy." Hana growled and bent down, capturing his lips in a frenzied kiss, which he responded to in kind. "You ready for this, you little bastard?" she asked and licked the hollow of his throat, then none-too-gently nipped his jaw with her sharp teeth.

"Bring it on, you sexy bitch!" he exclaimed defiantly, causing Hana to grin with approval. Nothing like being hornier then hell, to dispel the first-time jitters and bring out a bit of that dirty mouth she enjoyed so much. She switched between passive and aggressive whenever it suited her, but one area that neither she nor her partners were allowed to be passive, were in the verbal department. She liked few things better then a really good verbal spar, almost bordering on the abusive.

Naruto hadn't quite caught up to her in that department, but she was fully confident that he eventually would.

She crawled on top of him, straddling his legs and ignoring a brief jolt of pain from her right foot as she did so. She raised herself up and looked down, grabbing on to his still stiff member with her right hand. The guy was a machine, recovered like nobody's business and quite often remained hard after his first and on occasion, second climax.

His staying power had been beyond laughable at first, but like with so much else she'd noticed about him, he rapidly improved from their sessions and she now found it somewhat satisfactory. Seeing as how he had improved since they grew intimate and how hot she felt after the cleaning up he'd preformed upon her, she even nursed solid hopes of being able to climax with him inside her.

She impatiently guided him to her moist entrance and somewhat more patiently then she'd have liked, lowered herself onto him. It had been a while for her and it was likely his first, so she refrained from using her usual wild abandon and instead took it slow. But once he was half-way inside, she decided to screw slow and simply slammed herself down onto him, emitting a small pained grunt as the walls of her pussy were suddenly stretched out at an uncomfortable rate.

She however got off on that faint bit of pain and smirked down at him, once he'd bottomed out and was fully sheathed inside of her.

"How does it feel, hm? Feeling good, you little shit? Does it feel good to have your dirty limp little cock stuffed into my gloriously tight marvellous cunt?" she growled.

"Fuck, yeah!" Naruto yelled in utter approval.

"Oooh, you 'aint experienced nothing yet! Plead for it, you fucker! Beg me to start moving. Scream and yell for me to ride you!" she snarled with a wild-eyed expression.

"Fuck that, you sexy bitch!" Naruto retorted, grasped her hips and started jolting her up and down.

"Oh, think you're all that, huh?" Hana growled and bent forward, biting down and rather hard at that, on his left shoulder. She pressed herself down as hard as she could, stopping him from using her to fuck himself. "And what makes you think that I'm ever going to let a wimp like you fuck somebody as spectacular as me?" she drawled, licking a few specks of his blood off her lips.

She grunted as Naruto turned them around, putting her onto her back and leaving him hovering above her. He captured her lips with his, then bit down on her lower lip, drawing blood as he did so. He recaptured her lips and then licked them, grinning as he stared down at her, his lips moistened with her blood.

"Because you're fucking mine, you smoking hot little bitch!" he growled possessively, wild-eyed with lust and animalistic want.

"And you're mine, my little manwhore! Fuck me! Take me! Take your sexy little bitch, packmate of my heart!" she screamed and then he did just that, almost completely pulling out of her, before he shoved himself back in. She let out a faint grunt, partly because of what they were doing and partly because she'd slipped for a moment and actually used that disgustingly sappy phrase mid-encounter.

Not that she didn't ordinarily delight in it, finding it immensely satisfying to actually have a packmate of her heart of her own and being able to call him such, but she was in no mood for mush and tenderness now!

To call the acts they engaged in during that night 'making love', would likely have caused quite a few people to shake their heads in dismay and claim that it was nothing but frenzied fucking, simply rutting like rabid animals.

For Hana however, such wild abandonment in the sack, allowing yourself to let go so completely in the presence of your lover, was the ultimate expression of love and Naruto had went right along with her and let himself go as well.

Screw flowers. Fuck slow and gentle. To hell with chocolate. Take your silly rings and shove them up your ass! Marriages were nothing but a ridiculous farce compared to being yourself and allowing your lower urges to take over.

When the two of them had finally exhausted each other and they lay panting beside one another, trying to regain their breaths, they looked more like the victims of a brutal all-out-fight then two lovers. There had been biting, they had scratched each other, they'd pulled at each others hair and there had been the occasional punch or elbow involved, but there was no mistaking the shit-eating grins on their respective lips for anything else then whole-hearted approval as they laid panting in exhaustion next to each other.

The End! ( For now... )


	4. Four

Hooray for bad Intel [R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: One of the worst things that can befall a ninja, is going on a mission based on faulty Intel. But for Naruto and his temporary team-mate, it might just turn out to be the best thing to ever happen to them! Completed!

Disclaimer: Naruto, Konoha and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine.  
If the layout looks screwy or symbols seems to be missing, you're probably reading the quickedit-mangled version of this fic on ff dot net, if it grates on your nerves too much, read it on hawksgalaxy dot com or something.

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860, MSN Messenger/E-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dotcom, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like. More stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV 

* * *

Chapter Four:

It was five days after Naruto lost his virginity that the snow started up again, another ruddy storm blowing up against the mountains. A second avalanche took out another part of the village and made the two of them reconsider their decision to stick around until the weather improved.

Unfortunately, the snow had piled up quite a bit during their stay and in some areas, it reached well above Hana's head, in most, it went up to Naruto's.

Naruto had suggested creating a thousand Shadow Clones, dismantling one of the houses and use the planks it was built with to dig their way out, but Hana had nixed that idea after a few moments worth of consideration. She'd pondered building some sort of sleigh, but she wasn't completely sure how to go about doing that and Naruto hadn't been able to give any credible-sounding suggestions for that either.

But, her companion and one of his remarkable traits had given her an idea that was by far more appealing then riding some rickety sleigh down to lower ground.

"Rejoice, Naruto. I'm going to teach you a jutsu." she announced, standing outside in the thick jacket, pants and boots Naruto had found for her. The pants were too tight, the jacket too large and the boots were just a little bit too narrow, but she was grateful for them none the less.

He had been less then thrilled of Hana heading outside, but she had been insistent and he'd eventually given in, curious as to what she was up to.

"Pay close attention, because I don't have enough Chakra to use it more then once, they I'll have to rest up for a few hours before I can use it again. Five times a day if I get plenty of rest in between the times using it is my maximum, so with me using it, it's no real help for us, considering the amount of ground we have to cover to get away from here." she further explained, then grinned as she looked at him. "But in the hands of a Chakra monster like you, well..."

She silently noted the way Naruto flinched when she said 'Chakra monster'. She had noticed a few such odd reactions before, noted how he got introspective for long periods of time and periodically seemingly was about to say something, only to apparently change his mind, grow frustrated and sulk for a while.

She hadn't pried, figuring that he'd tell her whatever was bothering the hell out of him like that when he was ready, not before. She was starting to grow rather curious about it however, even if she had yet to bring up the issue of whatever he was holding back from her.

Besides, she rather enjoyed drawing him out of his periodical funks. Especially in the last five days, after they'd become lovers in the true sense of the word.

True to her expectations, he'd taken to that as a fish to water and his freakishly inhuman stamina had served both of them well in that area as well. Even without her injured foot, she didn't doubt for a second that she would have walked oddly for days after he lost his virginity.

"What sort of jutsu is it?" Naruto asked eagerly.

"Oh, I think you'll like it. It's veeeeeeeery destructive, flashy as hell and it'll clear away snow like nobody's business." Hana drawled, then got into a long explanation of how he was supposed to mould his Chakra, the seals he had to use. Once she'd ensured that he could repeat all her instructions back to her well enough, she sent him into the house to fetch some fire for them.

She had advanced far enough with fire techniques that she didn't really need close proximity to a real fire in order to use them, but it did help, just as it likely would help Naruto out as he was learning the technique. Especially since he hadn't learned any fire techniques before.

He soon came back, carrying a burning piece of an old kitchen cabinet.

"Excellent. Now watch this!" Hana said, then took a deep breath, moved her torso back a bit as she moulded a fair bit of Chakra in preparation, then leaned forward, made a few quick seals and then exhaled as hard as she could.

"Katon: Karyuu Endan!" she shouted in mid-exhalation and blew out a long powerful gout of flame. The snow she aimed it at didn't so much melt, as evaporate. In a twenty meter long line away from her. Even after she had stopped exhaling fire, the snow near the newly dug-out corridor in the snow continued to melt. The temperature around them spiked for several seconds, before the breeze dealt with that and blew in a fresh gust of cold mountain air. She panted a few times, then turned to face Naruto and grinned. "That's the B-ranked Jutsu, Katon: Karyuu Endan. If you can get the hang of that one, we'll be out of these mountains before you know it." she said and limped over, giving him a passionate kiss to tide him over for a while. "Have fun practising it, I'm going inside." she finished.

"Sure thing, Hana-chan!" Naruto exclaimed, although somewhat distractedly. She heard him murmuring her instructions all over again and as she stopped at the door, she heard him shout "Katon: Karyuu Endan!" at the top of his lungs. She looked back over her shoulder and smiled as she saw a few miniscule sparks of fire pop out of his mouth along with a cloud of smoke.

"Good luck, Naruto." Hana whispered to herself and headed inside.

* * *

Two days later, after Naruto had spent most of those two days practising, he'd finally managed to get his ability with the new jutsu to a somewhat useful level. His version of it wasn't even half as hot as Hana's, only had about a third of her reach and he couldn't keep it up for as long as she could.

But in return, he could use it almost fifty times in a row before he had to rest up for a bit. But after an hour or so, he could use it a further ten times. But he could also create Shadow Clones and have them use it. Roughly half of them exploded when they tried, as they used up all their Chakra and failed. Roughly a quarter of them exploded in a fireball when they tried to use it. It didn't have the range of a successful one, but at least they did clear up a bit of snow when they blew up. The last quarter, succeeded in activating the technique, even if they vanished after that.

And Naruto could create hundreds of them!

So after resting up for a day, packing their stuff and preparing as much food as they could carry with them and Brightwind could pull behind her on a primitive sleigh that Hana had managed to put together, they set out early in the morning, just after sunset. 

Naruto had created nearly five-hundred clones the evening before, who had set out to clear the initial route for them. Some of the good work they had accomplished had been undone by the ever present snowfall, but even though new snow had fallen during the night, it hadn't become so much of it that it was a real hindrance and the three of them made it a fair bit down the mountain before Naruto had to create a new bunch of clones to clear the route for them.

He dug out shelter for the night in the mountainside using his Rasengan. The sleigh that Brightwind had pulled along, contained not only blankets, but also dry firewood, so even if it wasn't by far as comfortable as the house they'd been living in, it was still an improvement by far over some of the other conditions they'd endured during this mission.

In the late afternoon on the second day, they made it down to lower terrain and weren't forced to rely on fire jutsu to make the journey bearable. Hana started out their daily journeys on her own two feet, but in spite of the fact that she managed without the crutch, her right foot started bothering her something fierce after a couple of hours and she once again had to rely on Naruto carrying her during the rest of the day.

Brightwind obviously found this incredibly amusing and Hana cast quite a few dirty looks in the dog's direction whenever she spotted the dog grinning up at her on Naruto's back. Once they'd made it back to lower ground, Naruto summoned a horse-size talking frog and had that head on over to Konoha ahead of them to let them know that they were alive and on their way back to the village.

Hana's eyes had widened at that. She'd heard Naruto regaling her with what she had thought was tall tales of summoning the Frog Boss, Gamabunta. But as she'd never actually seen him ever summoning a frog before that, this sudden irrefutable evidence that he actually was capable of summoning frogs had her doubting her earlier thoughts. Especially as she now knew just how much Chakra her mate actually had!

She had on occasion before wondered if his seemingly tall tales might not be so tall after all, but this last piece of reality crashing down upon her actually caused her to wonder if they might not have been true, every single one of them.

She smiled, leaned forward and used her right hand to turn his head around, then captured his lips with hers in an unusually passionate kiss, even for her.

"Wow! What was that for?" Naruto wondered once he'd regained his bearings after that smoking spectacular kiss.

"For being you." Hana simply responded. "Thanks for telling the frog to speak with my family too, not only the Hokage." she added.

In fact, Naruto had instructed the frog to go to the Inuzuka compound first, the Hokage only after letting Hana's family know that she was all right.

Two days later, they reached a small village where they pooled their money together to buy new clothes, two backpacks, a tent, a new map, some proper un-mended blankets, water flagons and travel rations. Hana also had a real doctor take a look at her leg and he declared her well on her way to full recovery. He'd been appalled to hear that she'd used veterinarian jutsu on herself, but apparently it hadn't caused any sort of problems that he'd been able to spot.

Once they got back to Konoha, she'd ask the Medic Nins at Konoha Hospital to have a look at her. The doctor seemed to know what he was doing, but there were some things that only Medic Nins using medical jutsu could spot. Especially the sort of exotic problems that might result from having used Jutsu designed for animals on a human.

They crossed the border into Rain shortly after that, paying a fisherman with some of their last Ryo to take them across the river between Bird and Rain. Crossing Rain was simpler and they covered more ground, as the fisherman took them ashore not all that far from a merchant route, which meant that they had a proper road to travel on.

But in spite of their increased rate of speed, it was a much larger distance they had to traverse and thus it took them nearly two weeks before they were back in the Country of Fire again.

Thankfully, it was only a day's hard journey until they reached Border Town. Hana had her family wire her some money and the two of them also sent off a brief message to the Hokage, letting her know that they were both okay and now back in their own country.

Using the money they now had, they spoiled themselves rotten and checked into a somewhat fancy hotel for the night.

There hadn't been much opportunity for such since they left the abandoned village, so they took advantage of their facilities for the night to wash themselves thoroughly, gorge themselves on good food and then screw themselves silly for the better part of the night.

Both of them walked a bit oddly the following day, but none of them voiced even a single word of complaint. It had been more then worth it.

They made even better pace now, both of them regaining strength simply by being so close to home again and only eleven days after leaving Border Town, they reached the gates of Konoha.

"Home..." Hana breathed as the gates came into view.

"Home..." Naruto repeated, though he was looking at Hana, rather then the gates. She looked aside at him and observed him for a few seconds, then a wide smile lit up her face, making her seem even more beautiful then normally.

"Home!" she agreed and bent down, giving him another one of her extra-ordinarily passionate kisses and a fierce hug. They kept on hugging and kissing for a few minutes, then parted and started walking for the gates again, both of them with large silly grins adorning their faces.

They headed directly for the Central Administration Building, knowing that it was their duty to report to the Hokage straight away upon their arrival. Such was even more important after a failed mission, like this one had been. In fact, failure to do so unless there was a dire medical emergency, was punishable by death.

Tsunade had admitted them at once, but neither of them had the opportunity to even greet the woman in question, before she'd darted out from behind her desk and wrapped her arms around Naruto in a bone-shattering hug with Sannin-level speed.

Hana was torn between jealousy and amusement as she observed Naruto's head being buried between Tsunade's enormous assets, his arms waving about in mild panic as Tsunade crushed him against her. A faint ticking of her left eyebrow started as the woman seemed reluctant to ease up on the hugging and grew progressively worse as Tsunade started kissing the top of his head, crying and smiling at the same time.

"Hrm!" Hana harrumphed and focused a stern glare at the Hokage. "Tsunade-sama... I'd prefer for you not to molest my boyfriend, thank you very much!" she snapped irritably, causing the Hokage to look over at her with a surprised expression, dropping Naruto who fell flat to his ass onto the ground, taking deep breaths of air now that he wasn't being suffocated by Tsunade's enormous assets.

"Boyfriend?" Tsunade repeated slowly and in utter astonishment, then looked down at Naruto at her feet, panting and gulping down huge breaths of air. "This brat?" she asked for clarification.

"Hey!" Naruto protested.

"Yes!" Hana exclaimed proudly and kindly helped Naruto get back onto his feet, wrapping her left arm around his shoulders in a protective and extremely possessive gesture. Naruto unconsciously slung his right arm around her waist, holding her against him, just as she did to him.

Tsunade looked between the two of them with a non-plussed expression for almost a full minute without saying anything, before she suddenly grinned and let out a cheerful laugh.

"Well, congratulations then!" she exclaimed and headed for her desk. "Come along you two, have a drink with me. This calls for a celebration!" she declared and deftly extracted a bottle of fine sake and three small cups from one of the drawers in her desk.

"But... Our report?" Hana protested.

"Screw that. Shit happens. The frog told me what went down when it got here. Besides, a couple of weeks after you were supposed to return, I sent off three full teams to track you guys down. They dealt with the bandits and the missing Nins. They returned three weeks ago." Tsunade replied and poured sake into the cups, before snatching one of them for herself. "A toast, to your survival and for new relationships!" Tsunade suggested.

Hana hesitantly picked up a cup of her own. She wasn't much of a drinker, but she supposed that a drink might be warranted under the circumstances. Naruto grabbed the last one, even more hesitantly. He really wasn't much of a drinker, only having tasted sake twice before and not really caring for the taste.

"Kampai!" Tsunade declared and downed her cup in one go.

"Kampai..." Hana added more sedately, then slowly drained her sake, also in one go, but much slower then Tsunade.

"Kampai." Naruto agreed and tossed it all down in one go, only to wind up coughing and spluttering.

"Hah! That's the way to do it, brat." Tsunade approved. "Now get yourselves out of my office, you can type up your reports and hand them to my secretary tomorrow on your way to the hospital for a medical evaluation. After that, a week of mandatory leave, unless the medics at the hospital say that you need more time then that. I don't want to see either of you before then, at the earliest." she ordered them.

"Uh... Sure, Tsunade-sama..." Hana hesitantly responded, not at all used to this new Hokage and her behaviour yet.

"A week! Come on, you old hag! I can go on another mission tomorrow! You know it!" Naruto blustered, causing Tsunade to let off a deep sigh and pour herself a second cup of sake.

"No doubt. But wouldn't you rather spend tomorrow with me?" Hana asked, causing Naruto to stop dead in his tracks and the rest of whatever protest he'd been about to make die out unvoiced. Tsunade raised an eyebrow at that and looked up at Naruto and the silly expression on his face.

"Yeah..." he slowly agreed, vacantly nodding his head in full agreement with his girlfriend's extremely favourable suggestion.

"Inuzuka Hana..." Tsunade breathed in an astonished tone of voice. "You're my new idol!" she declared with utter conviction.

* * *

"I'm just not sure that this is a good idea, that's all..." Naruto commented and swallowed nervously.

"Ah, come on. They're not that bad! ... Well, Kiba could use some polishing to smoothen out his rough edges, I'll admit." she admitted and grinned. Though to tell the truth, the entire family could use a little polishing, her included. "But it doesn't matter, because if he becomes too much of a nuisance, I can still kick his butt like the little runt he is. But mom'll be cool with us, I promise." Hana argued confidently.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that..." Naruto mumbled, took a deep breath of air and pulled Hana into an alley along with him.

"Naruto, if you're worried about scoring points with my family who all possess enhanced senses, I can assure you that reeking of sex when we tell them about us, isn't the proper way to go about it." Hana commented with wry amusement, though she was unbuttoning her torn and worn Chuunin vest even as she argued against it. It had been a long eleven days since they left Border Town, which was the last time they'd had a proper fuck. There had been a couple of quickies in the tent since then, but compared to their usual sessions, it had been somewhat unsatisfactory.

Enough so that Hana didn't even consider the fact that she wasn't really comfortable with acts of intimacy out in the open.

"It's not that..." Naruto regretfully commented, letting out a longing sigh as Hana fumbled with her sweater, blinking in surprise at hearing that this wasn't about nookie.

"It... Isn't?" Hana asked, slowly letting her hands drop. "Well... What is this about then?" she asked somewhat irritably, feeling deeply cheated at the moment.

"There's something... I have... I should have told you earlier... It's really..." he stuttered, not quite knowing how he should go about telling her this.

"Naruto, I once had to carry the corpse of a Missing Nin on my back for two weeks, after the preservation jutsu had failed to work due some oddities with his bloodline. I have a sense of smell that allows me to pick up on even the tiniest hints of something from twenty feet off, even before I use jutsu to further enhance it, so that was one seriously upsetting two weeks for me! Trust me when I say that I couldn't care less about how you phrase things and that it takes quite a lot to upset me. Just say what's on your mind and we'll deal with it." Hana interjected.

"The Kyuubi is sealed inside of me." Naruto simply stated, causing Hana to blink in surprise and look down at him with an extremely odd expression on her face. "I'll... I'll be going now." Naruto mumbled and turned around, only to suddenly find himself pinned against the wall of the building behind him, Hana's powerful hands clamping down on his shoulders with twin grips of iron.

"I don't think so, packmate of my heart." Hana informed him, then leaned down and gave him a soft gentle kiss on his lips. "Is that all? Is that what you've been fretting about all this time?"

"Is that all?!" Naruto exclaimed. "I'm the Kyuubi!" he hissed in a low tone of voice, so he wouldn't be overheard.

"Bollocks and chickenshit." Hana snorted and pointed at Brightwind, who was seated at the edge of the alley, keeping an eye out to ensure that they wouldn't be disturbed. "There's a spirit bound into Brightwind. Every Inuzuka dog has a spirit bound inside of them. I did the Soul Binding for Brightwind, Fireheart and Soulreaver myself. Trust me when I say that I know quite a lot about sealing crap into living beings." she explained and glared down at him. "You're no more the Kyuubi then Brightwind is the Air Spirit sealed inside of her." she snorted. "You're Uzumaki Naruto, that's the end of that. The fact that you've got some crap sealed up inside of you is completely irrelevant and doesn't affect a single thing." she sternly informed him.

"You're the man who carried me away from danger. You're the man who blushed like a loon the first time you had to help me take a leak. You're the man who kept me alive, who provided for me when I couldn't do so myself. You gave me shelter, you brought me food and you nursed me for weeks! You put up with me when I was cranky, you joked to cheer me up when I was feeling down, you listened when I bitched and moaned. You're the man I've given my undying love to! You're Uzumaki Naruto, beloved packmate of my heart!" Hana ranted, then kissed him again. "And no fucking ruddy bloody demon, tailed or not, will ever change that!" she finished.

"Oh..." Naruto weakly responded, completely at a loss for words in the face of her frantic rant.

"Now come on. I want you to meet my family and then we'll lock ourselves up in my room and make love until the bed breaks. Are we clear on that?" she demanded to know.

"Okay..." he agreed in a faint tone of voice and suddenly found himself dragged off towards the Inuzuka compound, hand in fiercely clenched hand with Hana.

The End!


End file.
